Hunted
by IolantheLedo
Summary: In a dark world of sadistic control, souls lost and shattered are drawn together under the threat of a vengeful enemy. Rated M for language, violence and very adult situations. I don't own Inuyasha.
1. The Yokai

I don't own Inuyasha at any point throughout this story. This is a fanfic, I am not Rumiko Takahashi., (I'm not rich, famous or have any fans, so there ya go.)

I hope you tell me what you do/don't like, and whatever – mostly I want to know if the story makes sense, is believable (as far as fatnasies go), and if it's consistant. Flames are fine, too. Anyway, I hope you like it – if no, that's ok too. Thanks!

***

The demon lunged, scales flashing in the dark moonlight and teeth snapping. He was beyond angry; the disgusting beast was furious. How dare she interrupt him? He had done no real harm... he would have had she come later, but he hadn't done harm _yet_.

She could do little more than duck under the attack, dropping onto her stomach and pressing herself into the ground as the demon's lithe body darted over hers; the feel of its heated breath rose goose flesh along her spine. The beast passed over her, one claw tore cloth by her ribs, before it twisted around to double back at her. The ally they were in was narrow and the beast had difficulty turning around in the small space, buying her some time. Unfortunately, she was having difficutly maneuvering herself as well.

Sango took her chances. Stumbling forward, she snatched up her gigantic boomerang, Hiraikotsu, and ran.

_Out of the ally, out of the _ally, she silently chanted. She rounded a corner, skidded into an open courtyard and turned with Hiraikotsu raised to poise. The demon snapped around the corner, met her in a bizarre standoff across the courtyard, hissing an odd sound. She'd hurt him, she knew that. Before being trapped in the ally she had managed to catch the beast with one solid hit, at least, and its hard breathing was indicative of the damage she'd done.

"Keep fighting, yokai," Sango challenged. She loved the fight, the thrill, the intensity. This demon wasn't proving to be a great challenge, but it was better than mundane monotoring. No reason to dawdle, either, however – she needed to get this task done quickly if she planned to suceed. And if she planned to make it to breakfast on time.

The beast twisted around, brought up its scaly tail and swung. Sango ducked, rose again and lifted her weapon over her head. With great force and little energy, she swung the demon-bone-made weapon around and out –

— Then caught it up short, hard enough to jarr her shoulder, because a familiar shout rang out. She stumbled under the propulsion as the white haired half-yokai came down on the scaled beast, his claws bared and snarling.

"Inu-yasha!" she irritably hissed, her shoulder aching. He ignored her as he clawed deep gashes into the beast.

"You left without me, bitch!" he accused, meeting her anger with his own. Sango caught her balance, glowering at him, even as her soft heart worried that her friend would find himelf wounded. Her worry doubled once the demon shook Inuyasha loose and sent him flying. He landed on the balls of his bare feet, skidded back along the ground.

Sango exhaled sharply and swung again, sent her weapon careening through the air. The scaled yokai dodged with fluid, watery movements and Hiraikotsu came back to her. She moved a few steps aside, caught the weapon, and raised it again. And now that she knew Inuyasha was here, she held her ground so he could draw his sword and lunge again, slicing at the beast from the other side.

He nearly sliced it in half, so reeking bowels bulged through skin and scales. But his spine was whole and as it howeled its agony, it staggered over itself before whipping around to furiously turn on Inuasyasha.

The beast's short legs moved quickly, tail slashing from side to side.

"_Inuyasha_!" shouted Sango, but of course the half-yokai only grinned in what emerged as more of a snarl, and waited. He jumped, skipped off the wall at his back and flipped over the yokai, split its skull.

The demon staggered and fumbled; Hiraikotsu careened as the panicking beast shattered stone under its clawed feet. Alarmed and desperate, he whipped his tail around, catching Sango in the side. Agony bloomed as the tail caught her in the ribs. Her feet left the ground.

The demon bone boomerang snapped the demon's head off in the same moment that Inuyasha shouted her name and sliced it through the middle. Sango caught sight of the beast falling into three pieces a breath before she went through the window. She rolled, hit the opposite wall and landed hard enough to feel everything in her body. Pain shuddered under the skin, throbbing through the bone of her ribs.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Sango doubled over, protectively gripping her ribs, teeth gritted. Heat wafted through her body. Her stomach rolled. She did not have to be a healer to know she'd managed to do serious damage.

Struggling, Sango climbed to her feet and found herself staring at a stunned family of three who had, a moment ago, been watching a movie and oblivious to the goings on in the all outside their apartment. Their window was shattered; she'd knocked over some decorative glass pieces, shattering them on the floor. Surprisingly, there seemed to be very little harm otherwise done.

Or so she believed until the Hiraikotsu came slamming through the wall, splintered the low coffee table, and buried itself into the wooden floor of the house. Sango frowned down at the weapon, feeling oddly betrayed by her weapon, like it had done this on purpose. Through the wall, she could see Inuyasha glowering as he leaned to the side to peer at her through the window.

"There you go," he called.

She frowned at him in a way that let him know she was mentaly flipping him off.

Sango smiled wanly at the family as she limped her way to the weapon. Her hip ached; she'd smacked it into something during her slide across the room. Her ribs burned and throbbed, stinging with such force the edge of her vision was sparkling with color. Swallowing against the nausea, she lifted Hiraikotsu, groaned at the pain the intense movement caused, and tucked the other arm against her side.

Finally, the stunned family still staring at her, entirely silent, she made her way to the nearest door. It somehow seemed seemed oddly rude to go climbing through the hole in the wall, though that would have been her quickest retreat.

"Sorry, " she murmured as she fastened her weapon over her shoulder and dragged the door closed behind her.

"What was that?" Sango demanded, straddled over her giant demon cat and flying high enough over the city to be relatively unseen. Cross-legged behind her, fuming, Inuyasha glared.

"What was what?"

"That… thing."

"Too much for you?" he snidely asked. Sango frowned.

"No. It wasn't particularly strong at all, but…" her voice trailed away as her mind assessed and considered. At her back, she heard Inuyasha mutter a curse.

"It was pretty weird," he admitted. "It kind of seemed like a puppet. Every time it moved it almost seemed to pause, like it was listening to orders first." Sango nodded as dark hair torn loose from her pony tail slapped at her face.

"That's the third time this month alone we've crossed the same behaviors."

"I'm starting to wonder if someone laid a clutch of retarded babies." Sango hid her smirk behind a frown and turned her head only a little to the side, unwilling to twist around to look at him lest she jar her aching ribs. Then, "Does the Order of Exterminators have anything to say about it?"

"I get my orders from my father, not any of the higher ups," Sango clarified. "If they've said anything to him about it, he hasn't passed that on to me."

"Ask."

Sango hesitated. "I will… if we cross any more." She chewed her lip. "Of course, I can't mention you were ever there."

"Sure you get to go and take all the fucking credit."

"If they find out I'm associating with you, they'll kick me out!"

"Better off without 'em anyway."

"Inuyasha," she lightly scolded and he muttered something in return, but she couldn't hear it over the wind. More loudly, he added,

"The whole world would be better off without those hypocritical sons of bitches." Carefully, Sango did not answer and, perhaps wisely, changed the topic altogether.

"I did not leave you behind," she told him seriously after some moments.

"You were supposed to get me before you went off to track down that… thing. You never did, so it's your own fault you're hurt now." Sango grit her teeth and carefully did not sigh because she knew it was going to hurt of she did.

"I couldn't find you!" Even as she said it, Inuyasha rose to a crouch and looked down the ground far below.

"Look harder next time and don't go wandering off by yourself, you idiot," he snapped. Sango exhaled, glanced down at the rooftops shooting by beneath them.

_Puppets_. That word was making her uneasy. Puppet… puppet.

"Do you ever feel like your life is a series of deja vu?" she asked on impulse. Inuyasha snorted.

"You're an idiot," he snapped, and leapt from the two tailed cat's back to plummet down to the rooftop of his father's mansion below. Sango looked to the top of the cat's head.

"I miss working alone," she muttered, not really meaning it. A low growl rumbled through the cat's body as she soared over the city. Sango sighed, nodding her agreement, understanding the demon cat without words. "It has been quiet lately." She paused. "Hm. With Inuyasha, I give it but a couple weeks more before we realize we've just jinxed ourselves."

***

Miroku was awakened at three o'clock because his mother and someone from the bar she frequented were in her bedroom – and they were loud.

He tried, with a groan, to cover the sound using his headphones. It didn't work. Within half an hour he crawled up from the couch in the living room that served as his bed and dug about the trailer home floor until he found a relatively clean pair of jeans and an indigo t-shirt that at least smelled clean. He organized dirty dishes onto the counter of the little kitchen before leaning over the sink to scrub water over his face and brush his teeth, combed some water into his russet hair and pulled the straggled ends back into a band.

Yawning, Miroku went in search of his backpack, found it had fallen down the back of the couch and had to move the furniture to get it back out. He'd spent the evening with friends playing video games, had forgotten all about homework – even if he had remembered it, he wouldn't have done it.

Why bother? He wondered with a dry resigned glance to the hand shrouded in cloth and beads. _It_ was going to kill him anyway and he had given up on trying to figure out how to stop it.

Returning to the dingy kitchen, he kicked through the cluttered floor and opened the yellowing fridge. There was nothing there besides an opened carton of foul smelling yogurt, half an apple, and twenty some-odd beers. Instead, since it had fallen silent at this point, he was forced to resort to quietly sneaking into his mother's room. It smelled like sweat, beer and sex in here, musty and stale.

He picked up her purse from the scratched dresser and slipped a few dollars from her wallet, grateful there was any left at all after a trip to the bar. Glancing over once more to make sure they were both passed out, he crept back out of the room and pocketed the money. He slung his bag over his shoulder and left the trailer by three forty five.

It was still dark outside and chilly to boot. He slid his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans and worked his way across the old warehouse parking lot to the poorly lit street beyond. Fortunately, he did not come across anyone and while he could have taken care of himself just fine, Miroku was glad for it.

He stood at the dark bus stop for ten minutes before the rumbling beast pulled up. He dropped his change into the payment slot and slumped into the first seat – the bright bus was empty save one other person, an older man who dozed in the back. Wordlessly, the driver set the bus into gear and rolled north.

Though yawning and sleepy, Miroku remained awake and alert, watching the dark alleyways and rundown houses slide by. Gradually, the city grew nicer, well tended. The cracks in the streets here were patched, the side walks clean. There were no alleyways here – not really. There were no trailers, either.

When he saw what he was looking for, Miroku reached up to pull the chord overhead. The bus pulled up the curb and idled there until he stood on the sidewalk. Once it ground away, making a noise that Miroku was quite sure was not a good one, he crossed the street and climbed the endless stairs that took him to the top of the hill.

Mushin was there, waiting outside the pretty shrine as if he had been expecting him. The old man smiled warmly and Miroku did not miss that his face was flushed or that the monk swayed a little unsteadily.

"Good morning, Miroku."

"Mornin'." Miroku adjusted his bag on his shoulder. "Mind if I sleep here the rest of the night?" Mushin shook his head.

"We never do," he swore, and was honest with it. "Go on to bed, my boy. I'll wake you for school." Now, Miroku was fairly certain that wasn't going to happen, so once he reached the little room the monks had eventually set aside for him some time ago, he set the alarm clock he had long since left here.

Frankly, were it not for the monks, Miroku would long since have dropped out.

He didn't sleep the rest of the night. He lied on his back and held his cursed hand before his face, staring at it. He didn't know why.

It wasn't going to change anything.

***

Miroku emerged from the temple as sunlight brightly streamed down over the city. He had to step over Mushin in the doorway to get out and frowned down at the monk, paused long enough to check for a pulse, then continued on his way, satisfied to find one still thrumming beneath layers of flesh.

"Hey, Miroku." Miroku's expression slid into a contended grin and he inclined his head in polite greeting.

"Good morning, Kagome." She was already straddled over her bike, but now she stepped back over it and walked alongside instead, keeping pace with him. As they descended the stairs to the normal world below, she brace the bike to hold it secure. While she busied herself with that, Miroku rocked back onto the balls of his feet to casually get a good look at her round bottom.

"You must have gotten in pretty late," she mused. He snapped back to attention. "I was up until two o'clock this morning and never saw you." Miroku's grin turned almost leering as he teased – she was fun to tease.

"Were you looking for me?" he smugly asked. She spared him a look he knew well enough and humorously replied,

"No. I was guessing – you aren't always so quiet getting here. Especially after a party. You know what I mean?" Miroku frowned at that. What party? "Ani's party." Ah, _that_ party. Miroku shrugged.

"Wasn't there." Kagome gasped in mock astonishment.

"You weren't there! Houshi, I am surprised at you! Is it possible you are growing, dare I say, _bored_?" Miroku shook his head.

"I never grow bored of those… er… ladies. I just forgot." She dryly spared him a glance.

"You were stoned, weren't you?" He did not answer because he did not want the lecture.

"What were you doing awake until two?" he asked instead. Kagome's expression said she was full aware he was trying to divert her attention, but she let it go.

"Math test," she replied. Her expression turned wistful. "I dreamed that I passed with flying colors, that I even successfully got the extra credit, and the school threw me a party." Miroku arched a brow at her, eyed her chest with some consideration since she was busy daydreaming and wouldn't notice.

"You did?" He absently wondered. She winced.

"No. I wish I had dreamed that. I dreamed about beheaded, disemboweled people." Miroku stopped right where he was, all thoughts off breasts and butts falling out of his head, and one foot on the step above the other. He blinked at her, startled.

"You dreamed about _what_?" he asked, flabbergasted. Kagome inhaled and sharply let it out again. In that moment, he did not notice the nice heave of her bosom. Mostly.

"Okay, so, remember last week I had that dream about all those faceless people getting sucked into the wind tunnel thing in your hand?" Miroku serenely nodded. Inwardly he cursed and glowered. He flexed the beaded, shrouded hand that had previously been casually slack in his pocket.

"Yes," he smoothly replied, disturbed and angry and wishing she had never, ever told him about that dream. She visibly hesitated.

"Well, it was the same dream, except that the people were getting cut to pieces at the same time." Miroku said nothing, but he stared down at her, knowing he was intent and horrified, and working to regain composure that wouldn't come. Uncomfortable, Kagome looked back at him.

They had known one another for years. Long enough that Kagome had eventually been made aware that in his right palm he carried a curse; one that would kill him before too much longer. Long enough for her to care enough to be saddened by that. Long enough for him to know that she carried, deep within, the blessed powers of a priestess – and that she was pretty well ignorant of the fact.

They had known one another long enough for him to know she had frightening dreams possessing a horrible tendency to, in some form another, come true, and _that_, in part, was why he found her dreams about him so horribly disturbing.

"You dreamed I sucked chopped up people into hell," he slowly replied. She nervously smiled.

"I wish I really had dreamed about the math test."

"No kidding."

She spared him another apologetic glance before starting down the stairs again. More hesitant, Miroku followed, and very nearly gagged himself into throwing up so he didn't have to follow her the rest of the way to school. It was important to the monks, however, that he attended, and so he made his appearances even if he didn't make the effort. A sort of middle ground.

"I kind of wish you'd stop telling me these things," he told her.

"Sorry." As they neared the bottom, where the sidewalk stretched for ages in either direction, she slung her leg back over the bike and straddled it again. "I just… I was wondering, maybe, if that might be – somehow – of any use to you in your search about how to get rid of it."

Miroku's hand itched; he nearly held it out to look at it again and resisted. He smiled lazily.

"You never know," he diplomatically replied before inclining his head to the east. "Perhaps you should be on your way, Kagome. I would hate to see you late for your math final." She nodded, shifted to set her foot in one stirrup.

"Yes. I'll see you in a little while, Houshi."

Houshi Miroku nodded, fisting his hand in his pocket. "See ya."


	2. The Undertaking

Sango zoned out. She was too tired to focus, to listen. She was far more interested in mulling over the puppet demons. She sat slouched, with her head in her hand and absently massaging her scalp, tender from so long with her long hair yanked into a tie. Her ribs ached still, severely bruised. It had taken a bit of effort this morning to get the figure fitting white t-shirt over her head and she had cringed when she had worked to struggle into her jeans. Her brother had had to help her with her shoes.

And Kohaku had teasingly laughed at her about the whole time, masking his concern.

"Now." The sharp word barked made Sango flinch and a tangle of hair yanked painfully, caught up with the thick black band at her wrist. She pulled it free and sat up straighter. "Please take the next five minutes," announced Mrs. Takeshi, "and choose your selected groups."

Groups for what?

Sango hadn't so much as moved before Kagome's hands shot out, one in either direction. One set of fingers closed around Sango's forearm. The other snagged the sleeve of the boy to her right.

"I pick you guys," she announced. In some surprise, Sango blinked at her class friend, then looked past her to Miroku. She inwardly groaned. She outwardly looked serenely back to Kagome. Kagome smiled. "I planned on doing that," she admitted. Sango faintly smiled, and Kagome took that as consent. Her bright eyes turned to Miroku after that, her head darting around fast enough for her heavy black pony tail to fly out like a whip.

"Certainly, Kagome," he cheerfully agreed before she had to ask. Kagome clapped her hands together, pleased with herself, and while she wasn't looking, the boy called Miroku leaned back in his chair to leer at Sango over Kagome's back.

With a sigh, Sango turned her own attention to the notebook before her and drew out the syllabus they' been given at semester's start earlier in the week. She glanced up to watch Kagome stride to the front of the room, tugging down her baroque jade shirt, and stop before the teacher's desk to offer their names, then take the assignment they were handed.

"It's Sango, right?" Miroku asked. She glanced askance at him.

"You know it is, houshi." She dryly answered as her eyes found the assignment in hand. The final project, give a semester to complete. Groups of three, combining history, geography and literature.

This was a big deal, she inwardly mused.

"Sango, would you do me the honor of—"

"We got assignment number five," Kagome announced as she returned with what seemed to Sango like a sudden burst of hurry. "Demonology around the world and how it is different from one culture to the next. Compare to the myths and legends of good versus evil and how these creatures affect our world today." Sango went utterly still and her ribs twinged under the tension. "Well, this should be easy enough. Miroku's specialty at the shrine is demonology and exorcism."

Sango tensely frowned and met the boy's dark gaze. He smiled at her, but there was something odd in his blue eyes as he looked back at her. Carefully, Sango willed herself to ease, to subdue her aversion, her disproval.

Kagome didn't notice.

***

"But, Sango," her brother argued from the passenger seat, "it will be easy. You know _everything_ about demonology. Everyone knows at least a little so they can avoid yokai or defend themselves, but you know everything. It won't be hardly any work at all." Sango uncomfortably shifted as she stopped the car at a red light, working to ease some of the pressure on her ribs.

"Yeah, but it's a little like taking work home with you."

"You're a workaholic anyway," Kohaku dismissed. "Can I go to Jin's when we get home?" The light turned green and Sango turned the car into the neighborhood.

"Finish your homework first." Kohaku growled low in his throat.

"But –"

"Homework. First." Kohaku glared. "The order will not take kindly to me or you if you go to school without finishing the assignments they set for you."

"I have to be at my lessons by five. That won't leave any time at all!" Sango glanced at her brother, unhappily frowning out the window.

"Then you can see Jin at your lessons," she tried. "You can hang out while you're there." Kohaku made a gagging noise in his throat.

"Yeah, right. They don't let us talk! We have to focus and take tests and practice junk. It was easier when you were a kid." Sango faintly laughed.

"Yeah? How's that?"

"Your schools were both the same."

"Kohaku," she mused, "_your_ schools are both the same. Do you not go to a private school?" He frowned, sulking. "Do you not spend your day intermingling traditional education with the teachings and training of the Order of the Exterminators?" He didn't answer. "And do you not have to go to evening classes three times a week, just as I did?" She nodded, satisfied that she had made her point. "As soon as you meet your master requirements, you can start training in the field and going to a regular, public school."

"Most of us are not like you, Sango. Most people _never_ get to go to a public school – most don't even start running supervised missions until junior, even senior year. You were going on your own missions by the time you were sixteen!" Actually, she had been fifteen her first solo mission, but she wisely did not correct him.

"It runs in the family," she offered. Kohaku sulked further.

"Sure. You and our cousin managed to be really good – and who cares, actually, since she got kicked out of the order the same year. It's totally stupid that we have to pretend we disowned her so you don't get kicked out, too, even though everyone knows she still comes around when Father isn't there."

Sango eyed her brother as she pulled into the driveway and Kohaku did not wait to hear anything back from her before he all but fell out of the car in his rush, dragging his backpack behind him.

"Besides," he angrily grumbled, "_one_ of those three lessons takes up _all_ day Saturday and half of Sunday, so technically I go _four_ times a week. I _hate_ this place." More slowly, tender and aching, she followed, clicking the car doors locked before slapping it closed. Kohaku snatched her keys from her hands and hurried to reach the front door of the house.

Sango walked to the end of the driveway to collect the mail before she trailed after him, looping her book bag over her shoulder.

Kohaku enjoyed his training, she knew he did. He wanted to be good at what he did and he strived for it. Still, she understood his frustration. Sometimes, being a family dedicated to the order left little room for… well… anything. Even childhood.

Being of the Order of Exterminators was a little like combining a military force with a cult, and she would admit to that – if not aloud. There were harsh rules – far more zealous than they had been even a century ago, an evolution that had come to pass after a series of ruthless conflicts between exterminators and yokai. Sango, Kohaku and their cousin knew al too well what an exterminator of the order faced if they admitted to such weakness as sympathy.

Training could be all consuming; the job itself could and inevitably would, ensnare a person's entire life. That she had some semblance of freedom through her public school had been hard earned. She had fought hard for it and found it sadly disappointing, almost not worth it. For all her work and dedication, for all the fight she had put up, she didn't have the time to even enjoy it.

The Order of Exterminators community was a close knit one, made up of entire families and clans. Sango knew, in some recess of her mind, that the order was so extreme as to be verging on absolute nonsensicality. But she had been raised in it, of it. The idea of leaving was frightening. How her cousin had managed to so smoothly handle her own banishment was a bit of a mystery and, secretly, Sango agreed very much with Kohaku that it was ridiculous pretending she hated her cousin for nothing more than… it hadn't been a mistake, really. It had been _compassion_ that had led to her isolation.

So, yes, Sango understood Kohaku's frustration, his occasional outbursts of extreme anger. She empathized with his complaints. She did not, however, know what the hell to do about it. Anytime she thought of being vocal or taking into action her condemnation or loathing, Sango stopped.

To be kicked out was something she could live with – would have to live with, it came to it, however miserable. It was the cost that froze her.

Her father would publicly disown and humiliate her. They would take Kohaku away and Kohaku would be too young, too small, to fight back at all. That was not an option.

And yet the part of her that was angry, the part that was rebellious, had forged a sort of partnership with Inuyasha, had led her to keep Kirara for her companion, (though Kirara, yokai that she was, had been a part of the order for centuries before the order had been a unified faction, so the two tailed cat was generally accepted with a rare immunity to the racism anyway).

As if someone could read her thoughts, Sango glanced over her shoulder. Only two of her neighbors in the vicinity of eight blocks in any direction were exterminators, but it was close enough to make her check herself. She did not want a councilman knocking on her door.

Sango kicked closed the front door at her back as she entered the dim house and locked it again behind her. She dumped her bag on the low armoire in the hallway, checked to ensure Kohaku had tossed her keys into the painted wooden bowl set there. Kirara, shrunken down to the size of a kitten, rubbed against her legs. Sango smiled and greeted her, but didn't lean down to pet her. Kirara understood and was unoffended.

"What're you doing?" She jumped and had to turn fully around to face Inuyasha even as she tossed the mail onto the table.

"Group project. We'll have to meet here a good chunk of the time, I guess. Why are you here in the daylight?" Inuyasha snorted even as he moved to stand beside her.

"You'll probably need to fix the window in your side bathroom. What kind of project?" he asked at length and the question alone let her know he was precisely aware of what as going on.

"You broke the window?"

"You have no shrubs around your house. It's very hard to sneak in during the day. So I picked the place closest to the fence where your idiot neighbor has a willow hanging over half your lawn." Sango rolled her eyes. "What kind of project?" She knew he had followed her at times, to school or any other number of places, out of curiosity for the human half of him, if nothing else. He never, however, mentioned anything of it unless there was something that interested him. Sango would stake her life that she knew exactly what that something was. She glanced at him.

"Leave the girl alone," she said.

"Why?"

"She's… different. Special."

"Yeah, I know. Her aura reeks of goodness and bright light and all that crap. I've seen you with her before." Inuyasha wickedly grinned so Sango groaned aloud. "What's her name?"

"Kagome."

"Kagome," he repeated. "She's got a lot of power."

"Please, leave her alone."

"Fuck that," he snorted.

"Inuyasha, you do not know a single thing about cordiality or fragility. You can't slam her upside the head and expect it to work out well."

"Why would I slam her upside the head?" Sango rolled her eyes because he took that so literally.

"Inuyasha, she's my friend. I don't have a lot of those. You have to be nice to her."

"Why? Is she retarded like those puppet yokai?" Sango grit her teeth.

"She's as aware as anyone of the existence of demons. She is not aware of her own power or what she can do. You can't just charge into her life and rip it to shreds." Inuyasha studied his fingernails, long and razor sharp. Sango was fighting a loosing battle. "Never mind," she sighed.

Inuyasha snorted gracelessly. "I'll be sitting right here when she arrives."

And with that, Inuyasha sat on the floor in the middle of her living room, legs and arms stubbornly crossed. Sango did not bother, at that point, to inform him he'd be waiting there three days. Instead, she merely kicked him out of her house.

***

She had expected the phone call.

"Sango," growled her father. She leaned her hip to the kitchen counter.

"Yes, sir. We have to do this project together," she said before he could argue with her. "It's the way it's been set up, no ifs, ands or buts."

"I will call the school."

"Yes, sir."

Father rang again half an hour after that and laid down the law.

"No weekends," he snapped. "Only during daylight. They are to be gone by dark and there will be none of this nonsense of meeting in silly coffee houses or whatnot. This will not interfere with your chores or your work. Kohaku is not to be inflicted with the radical harm of these outsiders and his schedule will not be interrupted."

"Yes, sir." She frowned when she saw Inuyasha leaning around the corner to the kitchen, having invited himself back into the house once the sun had set. She briefly ensured the blinds remained down and the shades drawn. They were.

"Be sure to pick up through the house; any and all artifacts of the order are to be put away and hidden. And though mere outsiders they may be, I'll not have my house looking like a mess for them."

"No, sir."

"I will be checking your grades to ensure that no other class work suffers from this ridiculous show of collaboration." Her father snorted. "Teach my child teamwork? Do they think my parenting suffers so greatly that I did not teach it myself?" Sango carefully did not answer that rhetorical question. "You are an independent soul, Sango. I do not imagine you will need to be lending too much time and effort to these children."

"No, sir."

"Good girl. I'll have the order check in on you from time to time and be sure my rules are being followed as I have set them out before you." Sango nearly winced as she looked back to Inuyasha.

"Yes, sir." Inuyasha snidely mocked her.

"I have indulged you this far, girl, in allowing you public school as is promised to all students of the order when they excel. I still, however, both as a councilman and as your father, have the right to take it back and return you to a school more befitting a child of the order." Sango knew a threat when she heard one.

"Yes, sir. Understood, sir. There will be no breaking your rules."

"This is a most ridiculous assignment. I'll never understand these public schools and why it's so important to you to tend one. Were you not already so well disciplined I'd worry that it corrupted her mind."

"No corruption here, sir," she quietly lied. Inuyasha muffled a derisive snort.

"Sango," Father said and this time his voice, oddly, gentled a fraction, though it would have been difficult for anyone else to notice it. Uneasy, Sango frowned and gestured Inuyasha to knock it off. He didn't.

"Sir?"

"She is no longer a part of this family. She has not been for two years. Why do you continually ignore my authority in the matter?" Sango's jaw clenched as she bit off the words.

"You may deny her being your niece, but she is still my cousin. She was over only once. Sir."

"I can overlook phone calls and I can overlook the occasional visits. I understand the pair of you were once close and it was I, after all, who was gracious enough to plea her defense."

"Yes, sir."

"But while I know your mind is pure to the order –" she bit on a rag to hold back the harsh bark of laughter "—Kohaku is not yet so civilly trained. His mind is young. I want that girl no where near him. Personal visits will stop this instant." She slowly removed the cloth.

"Yes, sir."

"And Sango?" She waited, silent, because his voice had turned harsh and serious once more. Not good. "I know you lent her money. You will get it back."

"Sir, she –"

"I want my money back in my account and serving my house. Is that clear?"

"Yes." Silence. "Yes, sir. Perfectly clear, sir."

"Good girl." He hung up.

***

Miroku lounged back on the old cot in the little room the monks had given him and read various texts of Buddhavacana all bound together into one book. He had multiple publications of books with the same name and carefully worked his way through each and every one when he had the time to do it. The different schools put into Biddhavnaca different sutras, vinaya, and abhidarma, and with it brought their different views, their altering ideas.

He didn't know who was right, if anyone. It was always, in his opinion, wise to know all the different views and angles. From it, his spiritual beliefs grew and deepened. Buddha, he had always felt, was like a diamond, reflecting many different faces and aspects. It was for the follower to dig deep within his or her own soul and discover what it meant.

Despite some contrary belief, Miroku took his theological studies quite seriously indeed.

"What're you doing?"

Miroku lifted the book to look to the little yokai boy peering up at him over the edge of the cot. Miroku kindly smiled.

"Hello, Shippo," he warmly greeted. "How are you today?"

"Fine." The little fox child clambered up to sit on Miroku's belly and took the book from him, flipped it this way and that, but since he couldn't read, he only pretended to. "Ah, I see. You're reading a dirty book, but without the pictures, you think I can't tell." Miroku snorted on inelegant laughter.

"Not hardly, young Shippo."

"I know you, houshi. You're reading something with dirty words." Miroku chuckled and plucked the book back into his own possession, closed it gently and set it aside. Shippo rose and fell with Miroku's chest, arms crossed. "What is it then, then?" he ventured to ask at length.

"The teachings of the Buddha."

"Well, you are in a shrine, I suppose it's to be expected. From time to time."

"Well, thanks for that."

"How come, if you know how to exorcise yokai, you never try to with me?"

"Yokai is not necessarily a synonym for evil," offered Miroku. "And you, my friend, are nothing near to evil, are you?" Shippo shook his head. Miroku patted the top of his fluffy red haired skull. "As pleased as I am to see your ever smiling face, why aren't you with Kagome? I am under the impression she is very much your favorite over me."

"Well, she is, but I don't know where she went. We were playing hide and seek, then I couldn't find where she went to hide, and so I came here instead." Miroku blinked.

"She's still waiting for you to find her?"

"Or she got hungry and went home."

'Home' being the house across the lawn where the Higurashi family, landlords and owners of the property and the shrine itself, lived, permanent residents who followed their patriarch – a man Miroku had only ever met through Kagome, so only knew as Grandpa. Miroku sat up and Shippo scurried to the ground.

"Let's go find her, shall we? She's not likely to be far." Shippo led the way out the door, a bouncing ball of red fur and massive green eyes.

"How's life been treating you?" Miroku wondered, meandering his way after the yokai child, and subtly inquiring into his well being. Shippo was a prideful thing and defensive of his caretaker. He answered easily enough, this time, and so Miroku was instantly put at east that things were generally well for the young yokai.

"Fine, fine," he contentedly replied. "While she's at work, I'm happy enough being here." _She_, of course, being the young woman who had taken Shippo as her ward. He came and went as he pleased, between the shrine and the girl, depending on whatever shifts she was working. "No more break ins to the apartment in a couple of weeks now, so that's good. She still hides money in the freezer sometimes, so I hide it in my shirt when I leave so no one will take it if they break in again. But when I'm at the apartment I put it back do she doesn't know."

"I see." Miroku faintly frowned as he inclined his head to a fellow monk in passing. "You are careful that you are not telling people you have money, I hope."

"Nope. No one knows. Except Kagome. And you. I don't think you'll try to rob me, though."

"I won't."

The silence of the shrine and the vast lawns thereof were the epitome of peace. People from the outside came and fell into reverent silence as they came to worship, to seek guidance or council. The sounds of the city beyond were muffled, so the birds could be heard, so the delicate scent of nature came with the breeze.

Miroku deeply inhaled the wafting warmth of the lawns as Shippo cheerfully hummed in a rather off tone voice and snatching up a little scrap of bubble gum wrapper as it blew past him. Miroku grinned. There were none here who did not feel veneration and even visitors in their beaten garb would collect the city's refuse than blew onto the property and throw it away. It was the least, many said, that they could do.

Blessed peace, thought Miroku. An exceptional and divine rarity. His savior, his sanctuary.

"Oh! There's Kagome," called Shippo loudly.

Miroku looked up as Kagome came around the corner of her house, walking through the green grass of the lawn. She caught sight of them and settled her hands to her hips, feigning irritation through her smile. Shippo hurried to greet her and blamed Miroku for abandoning her in the first place.

"He called my attention," said Shippo. "I told him I was playing with you, but he didn't listen."

"Miroku," sighed Kagome as she scooped up the boy into her arms. He expelled an ever suffering sigh. Of course she would believe the child at face value. Miroku frowned at Shippo but the little fox demon only smiled in his charming way and asked when dinner would be served. For himself, Miroku waved them both away.

"The pair of you are shameless," he said. Shippo wrapped his arms about Kagome's neck.

"When is dinner going to be ready?" he asked, ignoring Miroku entirely.

"About now," Kagome replied. "You want to join us Miroku?"

"Nah, I've got some things to so. I'll grab a burger on the way."

"He means he's gonna go find girls, doesn't he?" Shippo asked, looking at Kagome. She diplomatically shrugged.

"We'll see you later, then, Miroku."

Miroku waved as he walked away, left them to their happy family dinner. Girls, he mused, would be a much better past time indeed for this evening. Alas, since he'd not been home in more than a day, he decided he'd best go see that his mother was still alive.


	3. The Meeting

Miroku rode the public bus with Kagome and she rather excitedly sat upright in her seat. He lounged beside her with a grin.

"Why are you always so excited about the bus?" he asked.

"It feels very metropolitan," she replied. Then, "Also, I've known Sango for two years and I have never been invited to her house before."

"Never?" She shook her head.

"We hardly even get to hang out outside school. We've gone out to the movies and lunch a couple of times but that's it – she's got a lot of extracurricular activities. Makes me feel pretty lazy." Miroku's brows rose. "She's never even come by the shrine, which is surprising, because she seems to know a lot about spiritual stuff." Miroku snorted and tucked the little tufts of information into the back of his mind.

"I am glad to see you so happy about it, then," he offered.

Kagome squinted ahead to see the different street signs, then all but jumped up in her seat to yank a little too hard at the overhead chord. She snatched up her book bag as Miroku pulled himself to his feet and slid out into the isle. As they set foot on the concrete path, she nudged him forward, batted away a hand she was already full aware reached to pat her bottom.

"This way, come on." Miroku sighed, his move thwarted, and followed at a leisurely pace.

"Why am I here again?" he asked, with a longing glance behind him and shaking his head at the declined offer made to him by one of the more… _worldly_ girls from school. He had been working to get that offer and he had declined when it had finally been given. He told himself it was because Kagome had _begged_ him to come to their little group meeting, _graciously_ called him the most brilliant man in the world, _pleaded_ for his infinite knowledge.

She had actually done none of those things. The truth was Miss Sango and her rather baffling reaction to demonology, however subtle it had been.

"It's your project, too," Kagome replied, unaware. "It'll be great to have you there – I'm glad you decided to come." She swatted his hand again, this time making contact with his knuckles and turning onto the first block. "Stop that, Houshi. Please be on your best behavior this afternoon, won't you? And where are your books?"

"You have yours don't you? So why weigh myself down with an extra load?"

The mistake made, he winced. Kagome glowered angrily, slid her book bag from her shoulder, and shoved it roughly into his chest. Sighing, resigned, Miroku shifted it onto his own shoulder and frowned down at the loaded thing. Damn it was heavier than he had expected it to be.

"I didn't mean it the way it sounded."

"Yeah right. Maybe it'll keep your hands busy." She scanned the house numbers and crossed the street – after dutifully looking both ways first. Miroku amiably followed still until Kagome picked the house she was looking for and marched to the door, the last fragments of her anger fading.

The house was simple enough, with no shrubbery at all to mark the small green, manicured yard. Two storied, the little house was green with a creamy trim – and even the car matched, emerald paint scratched and dented though the car appeared to be almost brand new. Miroku frowned, made another note of that, as Kagome knocked rapidly upon the cherry wood front door.

And while they waited for an answer, Miroku frowned, the hair of his arms tingling. He stifled a frown, any outward sign of concern, but as he glanced at Kagome he delicately stepped a little nearer. She showed no reaction to either him or the uneasy load of energy.

When Sango answered a few moments later, it was with a quiet smile and polite greetings. She invited them both in and shut the door behind them. Miroku made still another note of the five deadbolts lining the door above the regular key lock.

"I can take that if you like," Sango offered, reaching for the book bag. His shoulder already sore from the narrow weight of it, Miroku passed it over with thanks. "Would you like anything to drink?"

"What have you got?" Miroku casually wondered as he scanned the little foyer of pale tile. Nothing physically seemed out of place. He inhaled through his nostrils, noted the fading scent of dried bones and herbs, spices. Nothing, however, that yet confirmed the feeling of a yokai presence. So he waited and listened as Sango listed what was here.

"A soda would be great," Kagome said. Miroku nodded.

"Sure."

Sango nodded and gestured them around the corner to the dining room beyond. The kitchen opened to the room over a counter; both were brightly lit by overhead lights and elegant lamps. As she moved into the kitchen, Sango said,

"We can work here. There's plenty of space and I can still watch my brother in the other room." She smiled a bit. "Babysitting. Sorry."

"No problem. I have to baby sit my brother all the time," Kagome replied with ease. Miroku glanced across the hall before stepping into the dining room. There, cross legged on the floor, a boy somewhere around ten years old had his full attention cemented to the flickering television, lights turned down low.

As Miroku turned away, he caught sight of the stairs at the end of the hall and looked up to the cat sitting at the top. Small and admittedly adorable, the tiny beast regarded him with innocent, giant gold eyes and flicked her double tail contentedly. Miroku inwardly sighed.

There it was. The yokai. Not so bad – he hoped. But still his curiosity and apprehension were piqued. Miroku rarely came across yokai despite his line of expertise, but he had yet to find any of those experiences to be good ones. Never had he found one sitting like a beloved pet in one of the households.

While Kagome drew out her books from her bag on the table, Miroku stepped around to the computer at one end, a slight way of bringing Kagome back into arms reach – and not for his usual reasons. She was unaware of his motives, however, and spared him a warning glare.

"You can use that if you like," Sango offered, looking at him from under a lowered gaze and filling two glass cups with fizzing soda.

"Thanks. This should be rather helpful in our research." Eyeing her at the edges of his vision – and from here, the only things he could see to admire were her face and her breasts, which was no disappointment – Miroku sat before the computer. He didn't have the time to really toy with the idea of clicking on the 'history' selection, because Sango came back around the counter into the dining room. He wasn't sorry, though, because her fine rear came into view with it.

He could bide is time.

"We may not need internet," Kagome told Sango. "Miroku is a fountain of knowledge. Ask him anything – anything at all." Sango nodded briefly before realizing that Kagome was genuinely offering the challenge. She exhaled a breathy laugh.

"No, that's alright. I believe you."

"And don't stand too close to him, either," said Kagome. Sango frowned at the girl as she passed Miroku his soda.

"Why?"

Then she blanched, color flaming in her face as his hand finally, _finally_, had the chance to caress that fine, round bottom. She slapped him – hard. He had mostly expected the slap, but he was momentarily stunned by the force behind it. She jolted out of reach.

Miroku set down his miraculously unspilled drink.

"Ow."

"That's why," Kagome dryly replied.

"Watch you hands, _Houshi_," Sango snapped.

"It's a curse," he replied indignantly. Kagome shook her head at her friend before smiling apologetically at Sango.

"That's been his excuse since he was twelve," she offered. "He deserves what he gets, but please refrain from concussions?" She smiled sweetly and Sango faintly glowered.

"I can't promise anything." Kagome opened her mouth to say something, but instead paused and looked past Sango, back to the doorway.

"Hi." Sango turned; Miroku shifted his gaze over her head.

His anxiety increased tenfold.

Was that… inu-yokai? A dog demon? But, no… there was human blood in that one as well. Half-demon. The white haired boy appeared to be their age, though Miroku really had no way of actually knowing that. Even a Halfling lived longer and appeared younger than any human.

Sango, he noticed, briefly clenched her jaw but otherwise remained unruffled and serene.

"Inuyasha," she hesitantly said. "Meet Miroku and Kagome. Guys, this is Inuyasha." The one called Inuyasha raised his chin in a rather defiant fashion. He sniffed the air, nose switching. He eyed Miroku first and Miroku eyed him back, raising one brow. He looked to Kagome second – and with a lot more interest for it.

Kagome's face turned a little red under the intent scrutiny.

"Um…" she quietly said. "Are you wearing costume ears?"

The half-yokai blinked at her. Sango looked back at her. Miroku looked at her. Was she really that…?

"What are you taking about, stupid?" Inuyasha demanded curtly. Still holding his cheek, Miroku sighed. He leaned forward then, near enough to Sango's hair to catch the subtle scent of rose, to make her jump at the sudden nearness. A faint blush stained her cheeks – embarrassment or anger, he couldn't tell.

"You have a _lot_ of explaining to do," he murmured. "But I'll wait until we can talk in private." Sango looked at him askance, frowning at the innuendo.

Somewhere in the background, Miroku heard Kagome say,

"Can I touch them?"

* **

Since Inuyasha had settled at the furthest end of the table to scowl at them all, and since Kagome and Sango were entirely wrapped up in books and notes and boring chit chat about the stupid project at hand, (to which Miroku had long since put under the impression was all for show by a certain Sango, who obviously knew more than she was letting on), Miroku found himself, without guidance, a little off track. But only a little, as it really was an honest incident of one curiosity leading to another, then another and another still.

He peered at the screen and wondered how the hell that ug-o had managed to become a model. Her face was nearly disfigured, being so round and bug eyed as she was; she was short, which was not necessarily a bad thing, but she was kind of stumpy and her feet were massive. The red air that puffed around her head like an afro really didn't help that much, brilliant and stunning though the color may be.

She did however, he had to admit, have fabulous breasts.

He was considering if that was truly enough to make a model out of her when he became suddenly aware of the presence to his right. Almost hesitantly, he slid his eyeballs over to look and jolted, scrambled to close out of the screen and was instead staring into the ghastly face of a screeching demon thing. Still, he slapped the laptop closed for good measure.

He expelled a breath as Sango's little brother grinned and opened his mouth.

"He was looking at –" Miroku covered the boy's mouth with his hand.

"Sango," he primly said, "I think your brother may have seen a rather unseemly image of a rather… uh… graphic yokai lady." Sango looked from him to her brother.

"He's seen yokai before," she simply replied. Said little brother pried Miroku's hand away.

"She was a naked human lady, not yokai," he announced. Kagome dropped her head hard enough to smack her forehead on the table and that made Inuyasha jolt and cringe.

"You promised to be on your best behavior!" she complained, voice muffled. Miroku frowned at the grinning boy.

"You would have agreed she was yokai if you'd seen her face," he muttered.

For herself, Sango eyed the so-called monk. She looked at her brother for a moment as Kohaku laughed so hard he was double over ribs – which only served to remind her that hers still hurt. And after a moment, because she was full aware that she was somewhat under said monk's thumb, (how was she to know he would have recognized yokai presence? The guy had always struck her as a raging fool who thought with the wrong head!), she raised her chin and rose to her feet.

"Houshi, let me see what you were looking up on my computer," she demanded. And for a good excuse, she added, "Kohaku's young mind must be censored." Miroku actually bumbled over his words. He held up one finger even as his other hand pressed to the top of the laptop, as if to prevent her opening it.

"So graphic," he said, "that even the Lady Sango should likely not see the horror." Sango crossed her arms and, for one of the first times in her life, loved that, while he knew when to be discreet, Kohaku was, in fact, a big mouth.

So she simply said,

"Kohaku?"

Her brother stepped out of Miroku's reach, but the monk still leaned forward in a great rush to snag the boy's arm and once more close his hand over his mouth.

"We should just let this all go," Miroku said with a pointed look at her. "No questions asked. Me or you." Sango raised one brow. "I promise not to, uh, _harass_ you and you don't _ask_ –" he nodded his chin to Kagome, so Sango improvised _you don't tell_ "—about the graphic demonic scene I was looking at."

Sango pretended to consider while she inwardly began to laugh at the unfolding events. Eventually she nodded, curt and short.

"Alright, fine." Miroku slowly released her brother. Kohaku took one giant, oversized step back, wobbled a little to regain his balance, then stood up straight and tall. Vengefully, he said,

"Sister! It was a naked red haired human woman and he was staring at her boobies!" Then he ran from the room.

Sango slapped her hand over her mouth.

She knew her brother; she knew her brother often reacted poorly when Inuyasha harassed him. Still she was caught off guard and for a moment there was utter, complete silence. For whatever reason, Sango turned her back on the lecherous monk he wouldn't see her begin to crack under the onslaught of laugher. She snorted rather inelegantly.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Inuyasha demanded to know. She shook her head, couldn't find the voice to answer. But he could tell she was laughing and he knew that was most unlike the rather prim girl to do.

As she tried to snuff her giggling and retreated into the kitchen like it would serve as a barrier between her laughter and the others, Inuyasha frowned at her, then slid his glance to the monk. Miroku was caught somewhere between surprised and vaguely embarrassed.

"Wow," murmured Kagome on her own breathless giggling, "that is such an un-Sango-like reaction. You're lucky you don't have a concussion right now, Miroku."

And from the other room, Kohaku's loud complaining rang clear.

"You were supposed to hit him, Sango – not find it funny!"

***

After Kagome and Miroku had left, Inuyasha crept into the living room while Sango was busy talking to her cousin on the phone. Something about weird dreams and childhood imaginary friends; he didn't care enough to listen. He was still distracted by Kagome's aura, by this unnatural sense of purity and deadly skill, all wrapped up into one clueless girl who lived at a shrine, of all places. A girl who, by all he had seen, had influence over both the lecherous monk and the demon exterminator.

He knelt beside the boy and Kohaku primly looked back at him, chin raised and brows up, suspicious. Very much a look only Sango would normally be able to pull off.

Inuyasha pulled out the money he had stolen from Sango.

"You are going to make a phone call for me and not tell your sister about it," he demanded.

"Like a trap?" Asked Kohaku slowly.

"Yeah."

"You won't get her killed, will you?"

"What sort of a stupid fucking question is that?" Without having to know what it was all about and satisfied enough with the response he got – if also completely unruffled by the temper – Kohaku snatched the bill and fisted it in his hand.

"I'm in."


	4. The Brawl

He had been fourteen when his longtime friend from school, Kagome, had given him a suggestion. He had taken it. He had turned to the monks for guidance, for help.

And he had been coming to the monks only a few months when the police had arrived to investigate a series of thefts. The monks had cooperated in their own way and Miroku had quietly watched the unfolding drama from the shadows. Even then he had known, full well, that the monk's entire income resulted from meager donations and yet, despite being suddenly, virtually destitute, the monks had still shown no judgment to the one who had betrayed them. They had been hesitant to turn in anyone for theft, even when they had known precisely who had taken the money.

Humbled, Miroku, too, had kept quiet. Keiichi had been poor boy, seeking their guidance, and desperate for money to help pay his family's rent. Miroku had caught him, once, with his hand in the cookie jar, so to speak.

"My family is going to loose their apartment," he had said, begging Miroku's discretion. Miroku had agreed, following the lead of the monks, even as he had noted how the near emaciated boy had been, sweating and shaking, teeth chattering and eyes almost dazed in their desperation.

The police had threatened the monks before brusquely, judgmentally, explaining that the poor boy they liked so much was not looking to help his family. He was looking for a fix. _Don't you fools have some sort of screening process?_

Keiichi had gone to jail. Keiichi had been released. Keiichi had died on the streets of an overdose at the age of nineteen. Miroku had refused, after that, to allow the monks to suffer so again – not legally, not spiritually. No one would take advantage of them again. Not so long as he could prevent it.

So, at fourteen, Miroku had taken it upon himself to keep the financial records himself. He was no dictator with the funds, but he had eventually gotten the monks to record what they took, if not necessarily why and they had eventually, on their own, begun marking their reasons and giving him their receipts. He had books upon books of records, going back four years.

Nothing had gone missing since. The police had not been here since.

Tonight, Miroku lingered in the shrine, well after dark. It was quiet, the monks all retired – they were not often awake late. Miroku did as he often did, and quietly put away their sacred items, checked the donation jar and ran a careful inventory of what was there, updated their records and protected them from the cruel fraud common for the day.

It was a sad world indeed when an eighteen year old boy was the only one who cared enough to protect the monks of the shrine, though he liked to believe that someone, somewhere, would eventually have seen the injustice and stepped in, had he not been here to do it. He prayed someone would care enough to step in when his cursed hand killed him.

Miroku sighed as he put away the money in a locked box and filed away this evening's inventory. The monks would much prefer he spent his Thursday night doing homework or studying, but they settled for him simply being out of trouble and didn't argue.

"Miroku?" He looked up as Kagome leaned through the doorway with a tired smile. She was still dressed, so he assumed she had been working her way through her studies. He smiled.

"Hello, Kagome. You should be getting some sleep."

"You have a phone call," she told him.

His first thought was that he would kill for it to be Sango. He had been essentially sitting by the phone, he realized, and hadn't even known he was doing it. Funny. He'd never done that before.

He tapped the file away and followed her from the little office, pulling closed the door behind him. Kagome walked beside him across the great lawns of the shrine and up to the house at the other end.

"I'm not sure who it is," she yawned. "But it almost sounds like Kohaku." At that, Miroku frowned; that wasn't the sibling he'd been hoping for.

"Kohaku?"

"Yeah, but only because I think it's Inuyasha who's yelling at him in the background." Miroku snorted his laughter.

"And I didn't think either of them liked me," he chirped, following Kagome through the door and into the well lit kitchen. Smiling, she handed him the portable phone from the living room, then lifted the receiver of the kitchen phone. She sat in the nearest chair, chin on her fist, and curiously waited to see what happened.

"You are a shameless eavesdropper," whispered Miroku. Her smile further brightened and no denial fell from her lips. Miroku put the phone to his ear. "This is the great and wondrous Miroku, at your service."

"You are not great or wondrous, perv." That was definitely Kohaku's voice and Miroku inwardly laughed.

"That is debatable," he conceded. "What can I do for you my young friend?"

"I am calling on behalf of Inuyasha." Which resulted in what sounded distinctly like a slap and Kohaku's pained hiss.

"_Stop it! This was your idea – you said to keep it from Sango, you didn't say anything about keeping it secret from Miroku_." There was a vicious, ear scorching curse and what sounded like a brief scuffle before Kohaku was speaking into the receiver once more. "Anyway," he primly said. "I'm calling because Inuyasha says you won't listen to him. My sister is on her way to Fifth and Ace." Miroku frowned. That cross street was a small one, somewhere in the midst of a neighborhood by his mother's trailer.

"Not a nice area."

"I just thought you should know." Miroku glanced at the ceiling, wondering.

"Uh. Okay. Why?" Kohaku's ever suffering, dramatic sigh made the connection sound momentarily precarious.

"Because you know she's involved in yokai stuff. You were curious about it and she might have told you a little bit except that she got the upper hand when I caught you looking at that ugly woman's boobies. Now you can go to where she is and see exactly what she's doing." Miroku blinked and belatedly looked at Kagome. Baffled, stunned, she was staring at him. "Don't tell her I called you, though. Inuyasha bribed me."

"_Stupid brat – the whole point of you calling was so she wouldn't know it was me_!" hollered Inuyasha from some distance away from the receiver.

"Thanks, Kohaku."

"How did you know she –"

Miroku clicked off the line, then leaned forward to take the phone from Kagome and set it gently on the receiver.

"What was that all about?" Kagome demanded. Miroku idly scratched his cheek.

"Uh…"

"What did he mean that she's involved in yokai stuff? Like you are?"

"I do not think she does exorcisms, no."

"Miroku," hissed Kagome and he leaned forward to pat the top of her head like he soothed a puppy.

"I'll go see about it. I have a feeling Inuyasha will be here soon – he'll explain it all to you."

He left under Kagome's sputtering protests.

***

Sango slid down the rooftop and dropped to the ground, snatched up her fallen weapon from the dried, brown grass of the ill kept lawn. Slowly, she rose back to her feet and took the moment to assess her location. The corner house; the street lamp was a few yards away. A run down house was guarding her back – so long as something did not decide to go through said house.

This was not good.

She stood across the slobbering beast, braced, guarding herself with Hiraikotsu slanted defensively across her torso. Her ribs throbbed – Inuyasha knew she was not at her best. How dare he not show up? How dare he not be here in the first place – he had left before she had!

Had something happened? Her stomach knotted at the idea. It would be something important indeed that would keep him from a good fight.

Off to her left, Kirara growled quietly with each breath, her massive size taking over half of the street. Long fangs were bared, her fiery double tail flicking and showering sparks over the street. The people had already cleared themselves from the onslaught; they had fled to places safer before she had arrived. A couple were already dead, sprawled in the street, and Sango regretted she had been unable to get to them in time. It wouldn't be long before lights and sirens came blaring.

"Alright, Inuyasha," Sango breathed, "you said you'd be here by the time I got here, so… where are you?" She was not given a response. Obviously.

And the snarling beast rushed at her, head coming at her from one side, tail from the other. Struggling against renewed pain, Sango scrambled back as she withdrew from behind Hiraikotsu and flung it, hard and fast. The demon bone weapon sliced through the air, hit the beast and ripped a gouge in its chest.

It barely flinched, kept coming.

Sango dodged, skidding over concrete and catching herself on the light post. She spun back, ducked under the yokai as it caught itself and looped back around. The second emerged out of the darkness and dodged over her head, missing her, bent the pole in half. She darted forward to catch Hiraikotsu by the band and took a step back against the force of her weapon returning to her.

The yokai grinned a toothy smile, while its companion slid back into the shadows. Hidden in the darkness, all sense of its presence faded, as though it slid out of this plane altogether.

Gods, she was alone, surrounded, and couldn't even tell where half the enemies were!

"Exterminator." Sango glanced to her side as alarm shot straight to her toes.

"Houshi!" She braced herself further and glowered at the yokai as it looked upon them, predatorily inching forward. "Get out of here, you fool!"

"You seem to be struggling," he said, ignoring her command, blue eyes narrowing. "I expected better from a member of the order." Sango glanced at him, startled, but now was not the time to be interrogating him, either. Anger welled.

"Houshi, get out of here. A specialization among monks does not a warrior make! I cannot have you in the way."

"Ever heard of the Guild?" He seriously asked, bracing himself in much the same fashion and bringing up a worthless staff to clutch in both hands.

"Now is not the time," hissed Sango. The second beast loomed from the shadows, teeth glowing in the moonlight. Still, without the light touching it, it remained invisible to all other senses. Sango lunged forward, barreled into the monk and sent them both careening to one side, scraping against asphalt, and the second yokai's jaws chomped into the street hard enough to tear up a strip.

"There's two of them?" Miroku gaped, sprawled on his back. Pained, Sango scrambled to her feet. She heard more than felt another at her back, snagged the monk's collar and dragged him back, her feet sliding on the gravelly road. She slipped, slid, but got them both just far enough that yokai teeth scraped at their toes and took more asphalt with it.

"Three," she snapped. "Get out of my way!"

She shoved Miroku off her and snatched up Hiraikotsu again. She caught her balance long enough to throw the massive boomerang. It tore through the air with a low _whoosh_ of wind and left the third yokai's brain exposed. Skull crushed and raggedly ripped apart, it collapsed into the earth, its death so sudden it was soundless. But even as she braced herself before two more, the monk climbed again to his feet and set himself for battle.

"The Guild," he told her, "are freelancers."

She didn't have the chance, or inclination, to either challenge or question, so she accepted, momentarily resigned. Part of focus, however, shifted away from the battle, to mark the monk and track him.

The first yokai's tail wrapped around a car and, as if it were skipping stones over river, it tossed the vehicle, low to the ground. Tires scraped the street, bounced off, and blew out. Sango dodged to the side, left the car to skid further down the street. It caught one of the bodies sprawled there and sliced it in half, sent the pieces flying.

She cringed at the sight, felt a moment of pity and guilt that was quickly snuffed to be dealt with later. Even as she looked sharply back at the grinning, amused yokai, sutras were being thrown at it. They stuck to the yokai's flesh, burned it. The yokai was physically wounded, physically shifted awkwardly under the effects, but…

"It's not feeling any pain," Miroku calmly said. Sango glanced at the monk with new appreciation and nodded.

"This is worse than the puppets," she murmured.

***

Kagome impatiently tapped her fingers on her desk and stared out her window.

She knew it took a while to get to that part of town, but if everything was alright, then why wasn't Miroku back yet?

What if something had happened? What if he had been mugged and was unconscious in the gutter? What if drug fiends had kidnapped him? What if he had been caught in a drive by?

What if –?

Kagome nearly shrieked when Inuyasha dropped down in front of her window to land in a crouch on the roof, but her throat felt clogged and nothing came out. She clutched at the edges of her desk instead, stunned. Her heart thudded against her ribs her lungs seized, so for a moment she couldn't breathe.

Inuyasha tore the screen out of the frame and slid the window open.

Kagome scrambled up, knocking her chair back, and tripped over it. She had made it but three measly paces back before Inuyasha was standing before her, moving with such speed she hadn't even see him go to move at all.

"Let's go," he demanded. Kagome opened her mouth, planned to scream bloody murder until someone came to rescue her. Instead, Inuyasha clapped a hand over her mouth, picked her whole body up, and jumped back out the window. He crouched at the edge of the roof. "I promise I won't let you get hurt," he offered, forcibly shifting and juggling her until she was sitting piggy back with her arms around his neck.

They slid off the roof, landed on the ground, and lurched out into the night.

***

Miroku hit the ground. Hard. His staff clattered down beside him and flipped into the green grass of one lawn.

He lunged to the side, rolling with great force. The yokai's sharp tail pierced deep into the concrete sidewalk where he had been a breath before. Miroku snatched up the staff, swept himself up to his feet and turned. Wielding it like a spear, he threw the staff through the air.

The yokai bellowed so the air itself painfully vibrated, but under the threat of severed tendons, it didn't move quickly enough. The staff speared it through the mouth, caught the screaming and cut it off on a gurgle. The yokai staggered, stumbled – Sango's yokai cat bared her teeth and butted her head into the yokai hard enough for the neck to snap. The slithering body barreled into one house and took the whole structure down with it.

Dust and dirt exploded around the collapsing debris. The staff protruded out from the base of the yokai's skull. Miroku spun on the balls of his feet. Sango still faced the other, but the massive creature had stopped. It looked between the two of them and any sense of humor had gone dark, stark behind eyes that were furious.

"Houshi." The yokai's growl was deep and rumbled through the very earth itself. Somewhere in the distance, sirens were growing nearer. "Exterminator."

"Were they your friends?" Miroku sweetly asked. "Yeah, well. They started it."

The yokai bellowed its rage to that and scrambled on wounded, blistering feet towards him – but at least it wasn't looking at Sango any longer. Miroku drew sutras from his robes, grimly smiling. _Yes_, he silently taunted. _See if _this_ hurts, you bastard_!

Instead, while the yokai cat came to loom in defense at his back and dropped his retrieved staff from between her teeth, his concentration was shattered by a shrill scream. A girl landed in a tangle to his right, hard enough so _his_ teeth rattled.

"_Kagome_!" yelled Miroku. He tossed the sutras, let them fly out at the yokai, then dodged to the side, threw himself protectively over. He stared with immense surprise as a similarly yelling blur of red and white flew overhead. The sutras hit the yokai in the face, scorched the edge of one jaw, melted the opposite eyeball. The yokai cat stood protectively over Miroku and Kagome, crouching low and snarling.

Inuyasha was wielding a sword and brought it down over the yokai's head. Propulsion met propulsion. The sword sliced through the beast's skull and split it down the middle. Pure energy blew out, a gale of wind and force. Miroku turned his back to it, folded his arms around Kagome to shield her as the little stones and dirt from the road batted against is back.

_Sango_! His mind called.

The pieces of the enraged yokai split apart, fell apart to either side with a crash.

Then there was utter silence, except for one triumphant _HA_!

"How's that you son of a bitch!" Crowed Inuyasha.

Slow, hesitant, Miroku sat up and twisted around to look over his shoulder. The yokai pieces burned and smoldered, with Inuyasha standing proudly between them. The giant yokai cat suddenly shrunk and instead Miroku was looking at the familiar little kitten that wandered Sango's house.

"Meow," she sweetly greeted. Miroku expelled a breath. Across the street, Sango was sitting up from an unruly sprawl in one of the yards, her weapon tossed at her side. Aloud, she called,

"What happened to being here when I got here?"

"Ungrateful bitch," Inuyasha called back. "I sent the monk, didn't I?" Sango winced as she crawled to her feet and stiffly lifted her weapon from the ground. She visibly sighed. Without a hint of sarcasm, she replied,

"Thank you for that, truly."

_Well, then_.

Miroku looked back at Kagome, struggling to push herself to sit up, leaning on her hands. Pale and wide eyed, she stared at Inuyasha and the fallen monster.

"You okay, Kagome?" hollered Inuyasha, finally turning to face them. Miroku had expected shaking, maybe some blathering, and certainly he had expected immense shock, if not fear on top of it. Instead, Kagome's face turned red and she shot to her feet.

Miroku already began to slide back and away, calling the little yokai kitten to come with him. It was rare that he saw Kagome's temper – but it as enough for him to know it was time to wisely retreat.

"You jerk!" she furiously yelled. "You dropped me!"

"I did not drop you," snapped Inuyasha. "I threw you."

"What the hell is the difference? You could have killed me!" Miroku cringed away from the shrill sound of the girl's shouting. Bracing one hand to his ear, he crawled away to spare his sensitive hearing and worked his way to his feet. Halfway there, a hand came down to offer assistance.

"Thank you, Lady Sango," he huffed on a breath. He took her hand and she pulled him up with amazing strength. She was faintly frowning at him, her beautiful face smudged and tired, her pony tail falling out and long tendrils straggling about her face.

"I owe you an apology, I suppose," she offered quietly. "You took care of yourself just fine."

"Even if I hadn't been capable," he said on a crooked, charming smile, "I would have risked my life for you." Still frowning, she flushed, but no longer met his gaze as she turned her head to look at the pair some twenty yards away. For himself, Miroku frowned. Where had that comment come from?

An odd, strong sense of déjà vu pricked along his senses.

"Do not ever do that again," Kagome was yelling.

"Do what? I knew the monk would protect you."

"Why did you have to even bring him into it? Much less me?"

"I didn't have any notice about coming here," Inuyasha defended, folding his arms over his chest. "I sent him to help Sango while I came to get you."

"I didn't want you to come get me!"

"She's handling it well," mused Sango. Miroku nodded before turning his head to listen to the sirens. On the same wavelength, Sango raised her own voice. "We need to go before the cops get here!"

That, at least, silenced Kagome.

"Cops?" she repeated.

"Stupid," snapped Inuyasha. "What else would the sirens mean?"

Kagome looked from him to the fallen yokai beasts. "Okay, Miroku, I believe you now," she said.

"Believe you?" asked Sango.

"She always did think I was making this shit up," he muttered.

"Do you clean up, then?" Kagome asked him and Miroku nodded. Then he reached out to take Sango's hand and drew her back.

"Please stand behind me, Lady Sango. I do not wish to send you into hell." Baffled, she moved as told. Kagome was already – rather roughly – shoving Inuyasha to a safe distance and the half-yokai only went with much grouchy protest, and both were trying to talk over one another the whole while.

Miroku unwound the beads of his cursed, murderous hand. Fist folded, he directed his palm outward and drew back the glove that covered it.

Under the unmatched gale of wind, the corpses shifted and slid. Miroku braced himself against the pulling wind, gripped his wrist to hold his hand steady. The cursed hole in his hand sucked and pulled, drawing in debris – toys from the lawns, fallen branches, dust and dirt. The collapsed, broken house; the two bodies of the poor people who had been caught off guard, before help had arrived.

It all shriveled and shrunk, disappeared into the swirling vortex of his palm.

Finally, the heavy yokai bodies were lifted from the ground and as soon as their corpses were sucked in, Miroku folded his fist again and he expertly folded the cloth back over his hand, wrapped the sacred beads around his palm.

He fell back a step, wearied and knocked back by the vortex snapping into dormancy. Sango numbly set her hands to his shoulders, braced him. A little unsteady, Miroku leaned down to take up his staff again and smiled his thanks to the little yokai cat sitting beside it.

"We should go," he said loud enough to be heard by all. Inuyasha was glowering at him, thoughtful behind the harsh expression. Kagome was standing at his side with her hands on her hips, assessing Miroku's state.

"Meet back at my house," offered Sango.

Inuyasha briskly nodded and turned his back on Kagome. "Get on," he ordered.

"No – you'll toss me off again."

"I will not," he growled. He grabbed her wrists, twisted around and set them firmly in place. And because he wasn't waiting for consent, Kagome scrambled to set herself firmly against him. Inuyasha bounded away, over the rooftops. Wearied, Miroku expelled a tired breath.

Sango looked at the yokai cat.

"Kirara," she quietly said, frowning deeply as she glanced back at Miroku and looked him over with a new light. The little kitten blew up into a massive cat once more, flames bursting to life at the tips of her doubled tail. Sango climbed up; Miroku followed. He held tight to fur as the yokai called Kirara bounded into the skies above.


	5. The High Command

As it happened, Kagome realized, Sango had had her reasons for meeting back at the house. Almost the moment she returned – a few minutes after she and Inuyasha reached the dark house – the phone rang.

For fifteen minutes she was berated and interrogated and, apparently, giving her report as to how the extermination had gone. Inuyasha whispered for them to keep the lights off and not to touch the drawn blinds and drapes. Kagome and Miroku exchanged glances when they realized that Sango re wove everything that had transpired to never, not once, include anyone save herself and Kirara. Inuyasha, for himself, seemed unsurprised.

As for how the bodies had been swept away?

Upon the yokai's termination, they had expelled great gusts of wind and disintegrated their own bodies. Whomever she spoke to accepted this and the last five minutes was a long string of yes sir, no sirs.

"That's the order," announced Inuyasha once Sango had hung up.

"What is the order?" asked Miroku as the four of them sat on the floor in Sango's dark living room, cross legged and tense. Sango and Inuyasha, side by side, sat across from Miroku and Kagome, a clear sort of line drawn between them.

"A cult," answered Inuyasha, earning a glare from Sango, though she didn't deny it, either. She merely amended,

"The order is the Order of Exterminators and we are an _organization_ of yokai exterminators. We work under ten council members and investigate yokai harassments and killings and, when it's necessary, we take action."

"And by that," said Inuyasha, "she means that they jump in guns blazing and blow yokai to pieces. The whole 'kill them all and let God sort them out' business. No questions asked. They aren't so picky as the Guild."

"What's the Guild?" asked Kagome. Inuyasha looked to Miroku and raised one brow. Sango glanced at the half-breed inuyokai, recalled that Miroku had mentioned the Guild earlier, and looked to him instead. Since everyone else did, Kagome followed suite.

"We're an organization that caters to yokai and human discrepancies," he replied. "There's none of this 'kill them all' business, however. If a peaceful solution can be reached, we much prefer that. I've never heard of the order."

"They keep themselves secret," Inuyasha snidely replied. "Wouldn't want the lowly public to be able to get to them just any ol' time."

"I get the impression you don't like the order," murmured Kagome.

"Who would? Sango doesn't even like them."

"Inuyasha," hissed Sango, "do not put words in my mouth!"

"You're the one who makes the comments."

"Why don't you just leave?" asked Kagome.

"No," snapped Inuyasha and Sango at once, taking the others aback. Miroku and Kagome exchanged uneasy glances.

"I was born into and raised by the order," Sango evasively said.

"Spies, all of them," muttered Inuyasha.

"They spy on you?" asked Miroku, frowning at the exterminator. She was scowling at Inuyasha.

"Is that why Inuyasha brought me in through the side window?" wondered Kagome. "So if anyone was looking, they wouldn't see him?" Sango sighed.

"The order does not have much tolerance for yokai."

"Not any," snapped Inuyasha.

"Not much," Sango insisted. "There are some instances where yokai have been accepted into the order."

"Kirara," Miroku guessed with a glance to the cat curled on the couch. Sango nodded.

"She was a part of the order before it became organized. Back when it was a scattering of villages and mercenaries. She was sort of… phased in. There's a few others like her as well, but admittedly, not many."

"No yokai has joined the order in more than a century," Inuyasha explained with rarely displayed knowledge. "Maybe even two, but that's debatable. I don't think it counts when the order puts yokai in cages and forces them to help where needed."

Sango glanced away, ashamed, but she made no comment to that, either. Kagome leaned back on her hands and regarded the pair before her. Miroku brushed his fingers over his chin, thoughtful and frowning, disapproving. Inuyasha saw the monk's condemnation and nodded.

"Exactly." He nodded his head towards to Sango. "She pretends it's not happening."

"No," bit Sango, "I do not comment because you get righteous and angry."

"Do you blame me?"

"And I also do not mention it because if you get angry and storm off to do something stupid as you are want to do—"

"They might cage him," finished Kagome, horrified. Inuyasha shrugged.

"Ain't caught me yet," he dismissed.

"You consort with Sango knowing it might get you killed or imprisoned," Kagome surmised, "and she consorts with you knowing that it might rip her life to shreds." Neither commented. "You're very good friends to one another," she nostalgically finished. Miroku frowned faintly at her.

"Good friends," he said, "or it's a business arrangement." Inuyasha and Sango both looked at him almost blankly. "She's more successful and therefore influential by using you, which serves to give her favor so far as the chances of being kicked out after a mistake. You're more informed on the order and can therefore defend you and yours by using her, which serves to keep you out of the cages or killed any time you attract the order's attention in any way." Inuyasha and Sango exchanged glances. Kagome leaned towards Miroku.

"I'm going to guess it started business and now they really are friends." Miroku shrugged. More loudly, Kagome added, "So what are you going to do with us?"

"Do with you?" asked Sango.

"We know more than anyone else has ever known," agreed Miroku. Kagome nodded.

"And we are neither yokai nor a part of your precious order."

"We aren't going to kill you if that's what you mean," offered Inuyasha on a frown. Sango glanced at him, then turned her attention back to the shrine people.

"Besides, you are both powerful people. You' be better as allies than dead."

Kagome frowned. "Well I can see how that pertains to him…"

"You, too, idiot," Inuyasha snapped. "But you're too stupid to know it."

"Know what?" Kagome loudly demanded. Miroku settled a hand on her arm, soothing.

"He's right, I'm sorry to say."

"You're calling me an idiot, too?"

"Not so much an idiot as naïve. Oblivious." Kagome stared at him, then Inuyasha, and finally looked to Sango, waiting.

"You are overflowing with pure energy," Sango explained gently. "I don't know how you don't recognize it." Kagome splayed her hands and looked at them intently as if trying to see something.

"Everyone has great energy," she murmured. Miroku patted her hand.

"But yours is white and pure, glowing all around you. But I suppose I can see where you would not recognize it when you know little of yokai." Kagome clearly didn't understand, so Sango clarified – after slapping a hand over Inuyasha's mouth and cutting off his nasty retort.

"You have less experience with yokai than even regular civilians and I would aim to guess it is because they prefer to avoid your purity less it harm them."

"Also," agreed Miroku, "you are so adored by the people you meet because they are drawn to it."

"That's called being friendly," Kagome said. Inuyasha slapped Sango's hand away hard enough to make her rub her knuckles.

"She should see more yokai and have it proven," he announced. Kagome narrowed her gaze upon them and it was some long moments before she realized that neither Miroku nor Sango was arguing. Her jaw dropped.

"You agree with him?" she demanded. "Are you kidding?" No one was. She appeased to Miroku. "You wouldn't throw me into something so dangerous, would you my near and dear friend of many years?"

"I think it would do well to at least explore the options you have. You can then make an educated decision as to whether pursue it or not. But of course I will not force you one way or another."

She turned on Sango. "What if I get you in trouble?"

"Oh, you would never be mistaken for yokai. I won't get in trouble."

"What if the order decides to put me in a cage?"

"We won't tell them about you," Inuyasha flippantly replied. "And those idiots are obviously not hard to fool if Sango and I can keep our partnership secret from them for three fucking years."

"But –"

"Try," pressed all three at once, in monotone voices that were nearly identical. It was Miroku who sighed after that. "Three weeks. You won't see a great deal and it will show you what there is available. If you hate it so much, we won't bother you over it anymore –"

"Speak for yourself," snorted Inuyasha.

"—and if you do like it, we'll see about arranging for you to have a weapon for defense and perhaps growing insofar as your skills and talents."

"Tonight was worse than it usually is," soothed Sango. "It's unlikely to be harder than that." Kagome uneasily shifted.

"Why three weeks? Is there something special about it?" Sango and Inuyasha shook their heads, but Miroku nodded.

"Three is my lucky number." Kagome blandly looked at him.

"You're sure this will just be a test period? I won't have to fight and I won't get anyone in trouble – myself included."

"To the best of our ability," Miroku diplomatically replied.

"Even if you say no," Inuyasha shortly replied "you are pathetically easy to kidnap, so you may as well agree." Kagome eyed the half-breed, though she didn't doubt for a breath that he wasn't serious.

"Alright, fine," she agreed. "If only to prove to you that I'm nothing special." Miroku grinned at her. Sango and Inuyasha wore nearly identical expressions of brows raised in what was very nearly a challenge. "I really don't want to end up enslaved in a cage," she breathed. Inuyasha shook his head.

"You won't. I'll keep you safe."

"We'll keep the order away from you," Miroku promised with an odd glance to Inuyasha. "Well, except Sango, since she is already a part of that rather… _charming_ sounding place."

"What would happen if you were to leave?" Kagome asked at great length. Sango looked back at her, her feeling shrouded behind reserve.

"Weren't you listening, stupid?" demanded Inuyasha.

"Last time I asked, all you said was 'no'. I'm asking what would happen _if_ she did." Sango shook her head.

"You do not leave the order," she calmly replied. Miroku frowned.

"They'll kill you?" he guessed. Inuyasha inelegantly snorted.

"They might kill you, if you're lucky, but those sick bastards like playing their games. They'll bring you to your knees," he replied. Sango glanced sidelong at him. Quietly, knowingly, she added,

"You have no idea what they can do."

***

"_You're three months behind," the landlord hissed. "Don't give me no sob story about groceries or bills. Rent is one of you bills, so get the damn things paid."_

"_I'll pay it," she breathlessly swore as her young yokai ward pressed her to her legs. "I don't get paid for another week – it'll cover two months, I swear."_

"_Yeah, and what about this month?" he demanded. "Pay it current by Wednesday or you and your ward will find an eviction notice on your door and your shit in the lawn."_

Rin leaned heavily on the counter of her lousy studio apartment, a wash of nausea threatening to drop her. She swallowed against it, her knuckles turning white. Her knee shook so hard she nearly collapsed on the spot and will power alone kept her standing.

They had warned her, long ago.

_Be a good girl, Rin. Follow the rules._

She hadn't been good. She hadn't followed the rules.

The Order of Exterminators had tossed her on her ass. They had taken away her family and her family had not fought back. The only people who still stood beside her did so in clandestine, fearing they faced her fate if they were caught associating with a traitor. The order had erased most of her past. They had humiliated her, stripped her of her life, her family, her home…

She had emerged a frightened, sixteen year old girl dropped alone into the cruel world. All of her experience, all of her skill, wiped away to leave a clean slate. Finding work with nothing to back her had been but one of many obstacles and now, despite two demeaning jobs and eighty hour work weeks, she still couldn't make ends meet.

So she sent Shippo to the shrine. She trusted them to care for him – for free – while she was at work. She would trust them now, tonight. Shippo would not be back until tomorrow, she had made sure he understood that. And by then, everything would be cleaned and put away, and he would be none the wiser.

Rin breathed out slowly.

Wednesday was tomorrow. She would have the money. She had sealed her fate the moment she had rescued little Shippo from extermination and taken him into her lousy apartment thereafter. She had to take care of him – shelter, food, clothing. She had to take care of herself.

The order had promised to make her pay for her disloyalty. She was paying the price indeed.

They had stripped of the ability to land a decent job and any time she'd gotten close, they had cruelly intervened in any way possible to put her back on the verge of poverty. She had tried to enroll in school and from that effort had arisen a criminal record ten miles long and entirely invented. With no way to pay her tuition, she had dropped out.

She had tried a million avenues. Still the order made her pay. They always would.

When the knock finally sounded on her door, it resulted in a wave of dizziness and panic so intense she squeezed her eyes shut and vowed, willed, herself not to pass out. She reached blindly out to grasp the bottle of vodka sitting there, downed a massive swallow, and stood straight.

The knock sounded again.

Bracing a hand on the wall, she left the corner kitchen and went to the door, slid back the dead bolts and thumbed the lock. She swung open the door.

The man who stood there was some fifty years old and graying at the temples. He looked her over, slowly, and she lowered her eyes to the floor, refused to acknowledge the leer. He moved in, reached out to shut the door for her when her mind froze.

"Money first," she lowly commanded. She steeled herself, recalled her training, and boldly met his dark gaze. Smirking, silent, he reached into the hidden pockets of his blazer and passed her the wad of cash. Though it was ridiculous, she carefully did not allow their fingers to touch as she took it, counted the bills in hand while she returned to the kitchen.

She hid the money in the locked combination safe bolted to the counter before turning back to return to him. He stood by the mattress shoved against the wall and watched her come, his leer turning into a wicked, sickening smile.

"You better give what's been promised," he told her with a deadly undertone. Rin lifted her chin, her jaw clenching. She was not going to be sick. She was _not_! Almost a warning, he finished, "I paid for a virgin."

Rin stood rigid and still as he stripped off his blazer. "I am."

At sixteen tender years old, Rin sold herself for the first time.

Two years later, it still gave her nightmares, and to this day remained her darkest secret.


	6. The Third Week

She survived three weeks. Praises be to whoever had blessed her.

And, hell, she was hooked.

"You know, Sango," mused Kagome from her place on Inuyasha's back, and seeming rather comfortable there, "three weeks ago, this would have seemed very weird to me and I may have thought twice about ever talking to you again." Sango and Miroku looked back at her. Inuyasha held silent and one ear twitched. "Of course, three weeks ago being kidnapped by a half demon and thrown into some surreal battle with giant… things… had been weird, too."

"And now?" Miroku cheerfully pressed.

"Now it's just another day," she replied on a feigned sigh. "In three weeks I have bared witness to five separate battles with five very, very different yokai." Sango and Miroku exchanged glances.

"_Witness_ being the key word," Miroku added. Kagome faintly winced.

"What are the two of you doing, anyway?" She asked. Sango faced forward as she looked through the back room of her house. Yes, she mused, this would have seemed very strange to any normal person. There were bones, a mass of weapons, and innumerable other sorts of memorabilia that probably looked… well, morbid.

"Getting you a weapon, like we said we would," she replied. From the doorway, her brother nodded.

"We got lots of stuff you can choose from and you won't have to stand off to the side anymore."

"You proved pathetically useless last night," added Inuyasha with only mild bite to his tone. With that, Inuyasha released his hold on Kagome's knees and let her slide back to the ground. She stepped around to stand beside him.

"I don't know how to use any of those things."

"You'll learn," growled Inuyasha. Sango moved forward into the room, assessing the various items stashed away and stored here. Herbs and spices, chemical concoctions, weapons, bones, clothing – all dumped in what someone outside her family might see as hectic. Inuyasha, frowning, picked up a roll of cloth and held it up so binding fell loose and it unrolled itself. The gleaming hilts of six bone bladed daggers hung, tucked into secure pouches.

"Not that," Sango gently said with a shake of her head. She took the knives from him and rolled them back up.

"Why not? She could learn to use 'em," protested Inuyasha. Sango merely shook her head again.

"These are confiscated, but they'll be getting returned." Though confused because that seemed very un-like the order she had described, no one pressed her on that. Kohaku, however, took the knives from his sister and went to tuck them away elsewhere, hidden in a little secret door in the floor.

"These belong to our cousin," he sharply said. "She'll be back for them." Sango winced.

"If you wanted to, you take archery in school, couldn't you?" asked Miroku at length. Kagome nodded.

"Yeah." Miroku pulled, from amongst one pile, a rather dirty but sturdy bow. He looked at Sango first, waited permission that this was something they could take.

"That's pretty solid," she said, eyeing it and settling her hands on her hips. "Might need to restring it and I don't have anymore arrows, but you can have that if you like." Kagome took the bow as it was handed to her, and ran her fingers over the smooth, polished wood.

"You okay?" asked Miroku when she had been silent for long minutes. Kagome nodded.

"Yeah. This feels… _right_." She nodded at her own words. "Purified arrows." She knew how odd that sounded, didn't even know where the words had come from, and didn't care. The three had each and every one bombarded her with their insane idea that she was something special but it was not until here, in this moment, that she thought she finally was feeling an inkling of what they meant.

"You look like you're dreaming," Kohaku observed with childlike wonder. Kagome faintly smiled.

"I sort of am. Feels like déjà vu, holding this."

Miroku looked through the cluttered room and reached out to test the blade of some curved thing attached a chain.

"That's mine," Kohaku proudly announced, moving over to pick it up. "Sango has her Hiraikotsu and I have this. Cool, isn't it? Mine's not made out of bones, though." At Sango's amused smile, Kohaku grinned and set his weapon back, glanced sheepishly at Miroku. "I'm still in training, so I'm not really supposed to play with it."

"Come on, Kagome," interrupted Inuyasha.

"Where are we going?"

"You need arrows, don't you? It won't work without them." Kagome nodded and snugged the bow over her shoulder, marveled at how familiar it felt to have it there.

"There's a medieval enthusiast shop downtown," she offered. At the following silence, she looked up. It was Kohaku, of them all, who indulgently said,

"I think he means _real_ arrows." Kagome blinked, confused.

"Well, I didn't want to get fake ones."

"If you're going to be dealing with the yokai," Miroku serenely explained, "you'll be needing weapons designed for it." Kagome nodded.

"Oh, that makes sense. Like something from a place where the order does their shopping." Sango shook her head as Inuyasha growled.

"The underground, stupid. Do you think the order would let me in their stupid shops?" Feeling silly, Kagome flushed with temper.

"Shut up. I'm new at this!"

"Just be careful," Sango warned and in turn Inuyasha's temper sparked as well.

"I know how to protect her!" he snapped, snagging Kagome's hand and dragging her back down the hallway to the front of the house. "I'm not the idiot, here."

"Hey!" Kagome protested. Leisurely, Kohaku wandered after them.

"I wish I could see the yokai underground. I bet it's cool." Sango shook her head at them as she turned back into the room once more.

"Get ready to go, Kohaku," she called. To Miroku, uncomfortable suddenly to be left alone with him, she said, "I think I've got something here you'd be interested in."

"Yeah?"

She didn't reply as she knelt before one seemingly disorganized pile of junk. She seemed to be able to navigate it just fine, however. It was but a few moments before she emerged with a wrapped box and turned on the balls of her feet to pass it up to him. Miroku took it, examined it.

"They're sutras," she told him. "We found them on some yokai a while ago. There's a great deal of power in them – a rare blessing within them. And they are very, very old." Brows rising, Miroku unfolded the cloth and pried open the old box. She hadn't been kidding. The sutras were stacked nearly together and all but glowed with an inner light.

"We think there was a powerful monk who fell under those yokai," she continued as she set one hand to her knee and rose to her feet. Brushing back long hair from her face, she glanced about the room again. "The yokai probably intended to destroy the sutras. Everything else in here is pretty much weapons – I don't think there's anything more of use to you."

"Wow." Humbled, Miroku eyed the glowing sutras before carefully closing the box again. "Thank you." She shrugged, self conscious – and adorable with it.

"I probably should have given them as thanks for helping with the yokai that first night, but I forgot they were up here until the other day." Feeling mischievous, Miroku said,

"I've seen you every single day for three weeks. You couldn't possibly have forgotten about me." She ignored the comment altogether.

"It wasn't until the demon last night that I realized you really should have them. Your sutras are powerful enough, but those would definitely have come in handy. That bastard was pretty tough on us." Which reminded him…

"How's your shoulder?"

"Sore, but fine." And with that, she gestured him out of the room, arm shrouded in the long sleeves of her form hugging black and white striped sweater. Miroku left as he was bid and waited in the hallways while she closed and locked the door again, black skirt shifting around her bare feet. There was a moment of silence as they walked down the hallway and though Miroku was examining the intricate designs of the box, he noticed the glance she slanted at him as she fiddled with the little silver star pendant of her necklace. "You said the Guild is freelancers." He slowly nodded.

"Yeah."

"You never clarified much," she evasively replied.

"You told me not to. You felt like being around me was a sort of betrayal to the order." She deeply inhaled.

"It is a betrayal," she replied. "In their eyes." Miroku raised his chin as he assessed her and went to sit on the couch in her living room. She sat in the corner, shifting to face him as she folded one elbow over the back of the couch and waited. Kirara leapt onto the couch and curled on her lap. Absently, Sango began to stroke her and continued watch him.

Miroku debated the wisdom of chatting with her about something she might grow very defensive over, but he eventually twisted around to set the precious sutras on the side table and tugged on his dark shirt as he turned back.

"The Guild operates more as a sort of… information base. No one gives anyone orders. It's where people can go to find exorcists or exterminators or any other number of things. In turn for the business, we pay a due to help support the underground markets and the council. The council," he clarified because he knew what the order's council was like, "is a group people who make their entire living ensuring sure the members of the Guild operate honestly."

"The order's council does that," she said. Miroku shook his head. Dragging his fingers through his messy hair, he said,

"The council for the Order of Exterminators serves as a dictatorship and you know it." Sango rose her brows at him but carefully made no comment either way, so Miroku continued.

"The Guild came about so that normal, average people in need of help could find what they needed. The council simply checks in from time to time when there's a concern that something was… poorly done. They make sure people who need help get it without being ripped off, be it financially or by a job badly completed. The point of the Guild is so that anyone who needs help gets it. If you do what you are supposed to do, do it well, and pay your dues, you'll probably never hear from anyone in the council."

"That seems… loose." She frowned, unsure if her words were the right ones, but he thought he knew what she meant.

"It can be," he agreed. "But people trust the Guild for it. If you hire someone of the Guild, you can rest assured you are getting what you paid for. Honest people –" she slanted him a glance "—who know what they're doing. Who aren't hung up in the pomp and the money."

"Hm." She fidgeted, flicking her own fingers lightly. "What if you don't pay your dues?"

"Your dues are paid by the job – just a little scrape off the top. If you aren't working, you aren't paying. If you don't pay, someone eventually shows up check on you. Make sure you're alive, find out if you haven't been working and they'll probably want to know why. If you don't pay out of sheer greediness… well the Guild won't back you as an honest person anymore and you won't get any jobs."

"Makes sense, I suppose," she murmured, frowning to herself.

"No one get their legs broken or head bashed in over it." She frowned at him this time and he shrugged. "Just saying." Miroku hesitated briefly. "No one ever gets kicked out or disowned for sympathizing with yokai. Most members do sympathize. Some members themselves are yokai." He shrugged. "And there is a great sense of commandership, of friendship, even. Great loyalty."

"There's a great deal of that in the order," she easily challenged.

"You're a member of the order," Miroku somberly replied, "and so I do not wish to insult them." She looked at him steadily and said nothing, so Miroku eventually sighed. "If a person leaves the support of the Guild by choice or otherwise, there is no retaliation unless the safety of self or others demands it. There is none of this business about keeping secret who and what you are, of keeping the Guild secret – it is through knowledge that people know where to go for help. The Guild does not believe in forcing beliefs or morals and they certainly would never threaten or blackmail a woman desperate not to loose her brother."

Startled, Sango sat a little straighter. "What do you know of that?"

"I can see it, Sango," he sighed. "It's not hard. You're friends with Inuyasha knowing full well the order would kick you out for it. Yet you work very hard to keep the friendship quiet and I can only assume Kohaku is the reason for that."

"I grew up in the order." It was a lame defense and she knew it.

"I grew up in a trailer park. Doesn't mean I have to spend the rest of my life in one." She said nothing for a while. "Look, none of us – not even Kagome – is unaware of your reasons at this point. And none of us would do anything that would cause the order to take Kohaku away from you. I think I speak for everyone when I say we'd defend you both."

Sango continued to frown at him, caught between greatly hesitant and deeply intrigued. Miroku inwardly smiled.

"What are you doing?" he abruptly asked. She blinked.

"Talking to you."

"Don't play stupid. What are your _plans_?" Unexpected anger simmered in his heart. "Let me guess. You'll spend the rest of your day playing domestic for a father who should be doing this stuff himself." She glanced past him to the clock on the wall and his anger turned into immense sadness, because his harsh comment was met with miserable resignation over anything else. She didn't even dig up enough temper to snap back at him.

"I'm taking Kohaku to soccer in a few minutes." Miroku rolled his eyes.

"Okay, since you take him to soccer five days a week, I'm going to assume that's code for training or something. After you drop him off, come with me for a little while." She warily frowned and he didn't blame her – he really was trying to grope her on a rather unfair a basis, (although Kagome seemed happy enough that he'd seemingly forgotten about her altogether, Inuyasha's threats notwithstanding).

"Go with you where?" she cautiously asked.

"Just come on." He rose to his feet on impulse, grabbed the hand that was sitting idly in her lap and hauled her to her feet. "Trust me."

"Um..."

"Sango," he kindly reminded her, "you've trusted me on numerous occasions in the past coupe of weeks to have your back in violent fights – you've trusted me with your life. Why don't you trust me not to take you somewhere unsavory?" She dryly eyed him and so he took her other hand as well, held them both in one of his. "I will be a perfect gentleman," he swore.

And as his other hand made contact with her bottom, her eyes went wide, that lovely flush came to her cheeks, then she leaned back to smack him across the face.

***

If anyone accused her of being scared, Kagome would strike them. As it was, she was merely… uncomfortable. Out of her league. In untested water. Yes, that's what it was. Still, she found herself but a breath behind Inuyasha and gripping the back of her strange red robes, uneasy to be further away among such unscrupulous characters.

"Yokai everywhere," she whispered. Inuyasha, arms folded, looked over his shoulder at her.

"Humans, too," he replied.

"This is the yokai underground?"

"No." He sounded surprised by her comment.

"I thought you said we were going to the yokai underground."

"No," now there was more agitation in his voice. "Kohaku said that. We are in the Guild's market." Kagome relaxed, if minimally. She still held on to his robes.

"Who knew this was under the mall the whole time? I eat lunch all the time in a place right over my head."

She looked overhead to the towering ceiling where some of the more air born creatures were fluttering from one suspended shop to another. Those who were earthbound strolled along hanging bridges and walkways that were far too precarious for her liking. Here, on the ground level, the shops were lined in rows, built with makeshift materials of scrap metal and sheets.

She felt like she was walking the market of a third world country. With demons.

Inuyasha suddenly started forward, dragging her along because she refused to let go. If he was irritated, he said nothing about it – which, she considered, probably meant he didn't care that she was hanging on to his shirt. She got away with a lot more than anyone else where Inuyasha was concerned.

She trailed after him, scanning the crowd. Some of the yokai looked very much like humans and she could only tell they weren't because of their markings or disfigurations. But they walked among the human population without the blink of an eye and the bizarre scene before her seemed… natural. Kagome exhaled slowly as her nerves began to ease.

"I think we've lost all track of the project," she said.

"What project?"

"The school project. The one Sango, Miroku and I are supposed to be doing." Inuyasha snorted.

"Just quit," he replied. "What do you need that junk for anyway?"

"To go to college and get a good job," she reminded him indulgently. But Inuyasha only snorted again.

"You'll be working with yokai. You don't need high school to do that."

"What makes you so sure I want to work among yokai?" she demanded.

"Because if you aren't the idiot I think you are, you'll do what you're good at." The offhanded, double edged compliment took her off guard. It was a moment before she recovered and asked,

"What if I want to go to college?"

"Why would you want to?"

"I like school!"

"Yeah, right. That's a fucking lie if ever I heard one."

"I'm not lying," Kagome protested. "I do like school!" Inuyasha glowered back at her. "I do!"

"It won't make you any smarter." Kagome sharply inhaled and opened her mouth to shout –

"Hi, guys!" Miroku's voice boomed far louder than was at all necessary but it didn't pass by Sango's attention that he was interrupting a comment that was on the verge of putting Kagome through the roof. Still overly loud, he continued, "Fancy meeting you here!"

Sango winced and leaned away from the noise. Kagome and Inuyasha stared at the pair of them only long enough to register that they were there. A moment later, Miroku's intervention proved to have been worthless. Kagome turned back to Inuyasha with insults. Inuyasha responded in kind.

Miroku turned away and took Sango's elbow, steered her away.

"Oh, never mind. I'm starting to think they like fighting with one another anyway." Sango glanced back at the feuding pair and distantly agreed. "It's all the sexual tension they refuse to acknowledge."

"Do you think of anything else?"

"Besides what?"

"Sex."

"Nah. I like thinking about it, especially if I'm having it." Even as part of her wanted to remind him he was a monk, Sango decided to pretend he hadn't said that because her knees suddenly felt a little weak and that was absolutely unacceptable.

"Are we where I think we are?" she asked because Miroku had brought her all the way into this massive structure deep under one of the prominent city buildings without uttering a word. Now, however, Miroku spread his arms wide to gesture the ramshackle scene.

"This, my dear Lady Sango, is the Guild market."

"What?" she snapped. "I can't be seen here!"

"You're already here," he reminded her. "No one here's going to care." Sango said nothing for a long time, but her seduction into his world, he noted, was already well under way because she didn't instantly turn and march straight back out.

She eyed it instead. "The order's is much nicer."

"The order operates like a corporation," he retorted. "We are mom and pop shops, uncorrupted by the conglomerate sleaze." Sango breathlessly laughed.

"You sound like a hippie," she chuckled, her discomfort obvious. Miroku glanced at her and dropped his arms, a little deflated.

"Come on, I'll show you." And because he was already striding away, Sango hurried to follow and keep pace. He wound his way through the maze of pathways through the shops, seeming to know precisely where he was going, though it really was anyone's guess so far as she was concerned.

He stopped at one of the shops, abruptly enough that she ran into his back and had to take a step away as he turned to glance at her.

"Relax," he breathed before turning forward again. "Mushin, I thought this might be where you'd gone off to this morning." Mushin, who appeared to be a monk much like Miroku, looked at them from his rather unruly sprawl in a chair behind the counter. Face red, he smiled.

"Well, hello, Miroku."

"Mushin, meet Sango. Sango, this is my mentor, Mushin." Sango eyed Mushin a moment before whispering,

"Is he drunk?"

"Probably." Miroku looked at his tutor and nodded. "Yeah, he's drunk. Good night, Mushin."

"Good night, Miroku."

Miroku took Sango's hand, dragged her away from the shop. She spared a glance over her shoulder at the drunken monk as another man emerged from the sheet shrouded back room to tend customers approaching with warm smiles and first names.

"Here," announced Miroku some five shops later, bringing them to another abrupt stop. "Afternoon, Shiochi," he casually greeted. Sango peered around his shoulder to the man behind this counter. He was older, he was grinning through a bearded face. His eyes were bright – and sober. She exhaled faintly, realized she had been worried that everyone the lecherous monk knew would be unprincipled.

"Miroku," greeted the older man, extending one hand. Miroku firmly shook with his cursed hand. "How are you this afternoon, my boy?"

"Doing well." Then he shifted to draw Sango up to his side and slung an arm around her shoulders. Uncomfortable, her face feeling very warm all of a sudden, Sango tried to smile and suspected it emerged as a grimace. "Sango, this is Shiochi. He introduced me the Guild. Shiochi, meet Sango." He lowered his voice almost conspiratorially. "She's a member of the order." Shiochi winced – winced! – and then plastered a pitying smile on his face.

"It's pleased I am to meet you, Lady Sango." Genuine politeness and joy swiftly overran the pity, but Sango was still somewhat offended. Well, not so much offended as dismayed. What sort of reputation did the order have? She had not thought about it before – or been confronted by it. "Are you two hungry?"

"Starved," Miroku replied. To Sango, he asked, "Ever had mutton cakes?"

"No."

"Two of those, then, Shiochi." Miroku shifted, changed his stance, and to keep herself upright and securely balanced, Sango set one hand to his chest, suspecting he'd done that on purpose.

Quietly, she asked, "What is mutton?"

Shiochi heard her. "It's sheep."

"Why don't you just call it lamb?" she wondered.

"Lamb is much younger than mutton," he announced, shuffling behind his counter and mixing up ingredients she couldn't see. "It's all in the teeth." Sango frowned. What? Shifting, she tried to see what all he was about, but Miroku's arm stiffened around her shoulders.

"You don't want to see that," he warned. "You won't eat the cakes if you do."

"That comment alone makes me not want to eat it," she dryly replied. Shiochi laughed.

"Spoken like a true child of the order," he teased. Or was he being serious? "Children of the order always play everything safe, don't they? Miroku, take her to meet Akihiko. I'll have these ready for you in half an hour." Even as Miroku went to dig out money from his pocket, Shiochi shook his head and held up one hand that appeared to be smeared with… was that _guts_? "Today it is on the house." He winked. "For the pretty lady."

Miroku saluted his friend and walked away, hauling Sango with him. She tried looking over her shoulder again, just to try to figure out if that had been what she thought it was. When she turned forward again, she was feeling a little sickly.

"I don't want that mutton pie," she said, looking up at him.

"Mutton _cake_. It wasn't guts on his hands, if that's what you're thinking."

"Praises be then!"

"It was brain."

"Houshi!"

"I'm kidding! Kidding. No, really, it was guts." She stopped on the spot and glowered, reaching up to grab the wrist dangling at her shoulder. "It was ground up," he finally sighed, exasperated. "It was just regular meat all ground up. Will you chill out?"

"Are you lying to me?"

"I would never lie to you Lady Sango." With that, he jerked her forward and kept moving.

Inhaling deeply and wanting nothing more than to go home, she nonetheless followed in silence. Because, if she were to be honest with herself, as awkward as she felt amongst Miroku's Guild, she was vastly curious. These people were so _different_ from the order – and there appeared to be a lot more holy men than warriors.

The order's markets – and there were three of them in the city – were much smaller. Each market leaned towards specializations, for the most part. The people knew one another, but politely referred to one another with titles and last names. People bowed or inclined their heads; they did not shake hands – or really touch at all, for that matter. They did not give anything on the house. In fact, she had never seen a food vendor of any sort in the order's markets. The people snidely gossiped at one another's backs and pleasantly smiled to their faces. If one were to walk away and look back quickly enough, they could see their vendor greedily counting coin earned by their inflated products.

Here, however, the people were… _nice_. They seemed to actually _like_ one another. All the different specializations and groups were clumped together and mixed in, which was not the most logical thing she could think of, but it was charming. Shiochi had genuinely been kind to her despite being of another faction. And as they walked, Miroku's name was called – by more women than men, she noted – and he greeted them back by first names and with personable questions.

How's your daughter feeling? Is she still with the flu?

Your dad's surgery was last week if I recall right – is he back on his feet yet?

I hear you lost your car in poker. Please tell me that's rumor! Oh… tough break, my friend.

And for the first time, Sango realized that there was no one in the order who would ever be caught dead gambling away their vehicle in poker. If they played poker at all. And if they had gambled their car away, they would have held at knifepoint anyone who dared breathe a word of it aloud.

"I can no longer feel my fingers," said Miroku. Sango glanced at him, followed his gaze to the hand still slung at her shoulder and realized she still gripped his wrist – rather tightly, at that.

"Oh," she instantly released him. "Sorry."

"It's alright." With that, Sango ducked down and removed his arm, blushing. She couldn't believe her lack of self, to have allowed such intimacy to go on for so long. And in public at that. Miroku's glance down at her was bemused, but he didn't say anything to further humiliate her.

He introduced her to Akihiko – a musician. She realized that she had been hearing music for some time now and had never really registered the fact. The little band was set up at one far end of the massive underground structure. He held out a hand to her as she was introduced and charismatically brushed his lips over her fingers. He was as good looking as Miroku and, like Miroku, he knew it.

"Ah, pity to have lost such beauty to the order," he mused, unkempt black hair falling forward to shadow green eyes. "Worse still, that Miroku met you first, eh?" Sango blinked.

"What? Oh – we're just friends. From school." Akihiko snickered.

"That's not what rumor says."

"Rumor!" Sango knew her face must be bright as a strawberry. "We've been here but half an hour! How could there possibly be any rumors?"

"Word spreads like wildfire around here," Akihiko explained. "Heard you were arm in arm most of the way here." Sango opened her mouth to retort, could only gape. What? This was a joke, right? In the net moment, Miroku stepped forward and removed Akihiko's hand from hers.

"Rumors," she said again. "People should not be assuming what they know nothing about." Akihiko snorted on bemused laughter.

"She _is_ of the order."

"Why do people keep saying that?" Sango quietly demanded. Miroku leaned down near.

"Because you are so _rigid_," he replied tightly. Sango glanced at him and realized, then, that he was angry. She clapped her mouth shut, clueless as to why he was angry. Fortunately, she was rescued from having to come up with any response.

"Don't forget me," interrupted another young man. Another good looking one full aware he was handsome. He took her hand, kissed her knuckles. "I'm Takao." Another still pushed him out of the way.

"I'm Taro." Takao and Taro appeared to be twins. Sango could think of nothing to say, so embarrassed as she was but she was once more saved from a response because a loud, delighted, shriek echoed through the great marketplace.

Reaching for a sword that was not there, Sango whirled with everyone else.

And there stood Kagome, but twenty yards off – with Inuyasha face down into the ground and groaning.

"I love this place!" Kagome announced, delighted. "It sells the best stuff _ever_ and now you, Inuyasha," she smiled upon the pained half demon the ground, watched him trying to get up, "can't be mean to me anymore because all I have to say is –"

Inuyasha's hands flew up. "Wait!"

"—Osuwari!"

And as if someone had grabbed the newly purchased beads slung around his neck, Inuyasha slammed face first into the ground.

Sango cringed. Miroku winced. Kagome jumped as if startled.

"Oh, sorry, Inuyasha. I didn't realize it worked even if I said Osuwari—" Inuyasha went down again. "—out of context."

"Stop fucking saying it!" he shouted, voice muffled by the dirt.

"Jeeze," Miroku muttered. "We can't take them anywhere."

***

"Thanks," Miroku grinned, accepting the mutton cakes over the counter. "And, uh… sorry." He nodded his head towards Sango, standing across the pathway and tensely shaking her head at the persistent vendor there. Shiochi smiled kindly.

"My boy," he sighed, "She is of the order. One visit will not make ease her mind." Miroku hitched a shoulder.

"Yeah, I get that, but I didn't think she'd be so rude."

"She's uptight."

"Yeah, no kidding." Shiochi exhaled faintly.

"Did I ever tell you I was once of the order?" Miroku nodded. "Alight, then. Let me tell you this. The order's entire base of loyalty is fear. Fear of being ostracized, fear of being isolated; fear of retaliation and fear of abuse. Moreover, the order pounds into a child's brain that to loose control is as bad as being sent to hell. If control slips, so does everything the child knows. Imagine, by adulthood, how difficult the idea of loosing control would be." Shiochi raised a brow. Miroku exhaled and glanced back at Sango again.

She was still shaking her head and rather than offer any comment, she was slowly backing away instead, arms folded over her belly. She was intrigued and he could see that much, but in her own mind, she was probably very nearly incapable of not worrying that someone would notice her, that things were different from what she knew, that she would get in trouble for being here.

"Give her more time?" he assumed. First, Shiochi laughed.

"Knowing you, my boy, my first thought is to stop grabbing her ass every chance you get." Miroku looked sharply at him, startled. "But mostly, give her a _reason_, not the idea of a dream."


	7. The Watcher

The house was very nearly, utterly silent.

Inuyasha sat hunched over the counter, guarding his ramen as though he expected someone to steal it – and casting Kagome suspicious, furious glances all the while. At the table behind him, Kagome dryly eyed him. Miroku took the excuse to abandon any note-taking for this ridiculous, long lost school project of theirs, and watched the spectacle. For herself, Sango busily cleaned her kitchen, silent.

"Can't you shut that crap off?" Inuyasha abruptly demanded. Without waiting, he leaned forward to turn off the radio, the drums and guitars snapped into silence. Sango faitly frowned at him but said nothing.

Silence again. Resigned, uneasy discomfort. Finally, Kagome offered,

"I'm sorry, Inuyasha. I didn't realize the necklace wouldn't come off."

"Lying bitch!" he growled and spun on the stool, then took hold of the beads around his neck and tried furiously to pull them over his head. "Look at this! You did this on purpose!" he angrily shouted.

"I did not!" Kagome snapped. "The vendor told me it would –"

"I know what the fucking vendor said! I was there!"

"If you know what she said then why did you let me put the necklace on you!" Inuyasha yanked on the beads again, this time appearing to try to break them.

"You tricked me."

"I did not."

"Yes you did."

"How did I trick you?"

"You put them on when I wasn't looking."

"You were so looking," Kagome vehemently argued. "You were irritated, but all I had to do was ask you sweetly and you let me. That is not a trick. You're just a big softie." Sango bit her lip to avoid a smile as the phone rang. Well aware and sharply trained, Kagome isntantly fell silent even as Inuysha did.

"Hello," Sango greeted.

"This line safe?" Asked a familiar woman's voice.

Sango smiled and exhaled slowly. To her guests, she clarified, "It's alright. It's my cousin." Then she lowered her voice into the receiver, she said. "The line's clear for a few minutes at least. Hell, Rin, where have you been?"

"Working," Rin cheerfully replied. "Same old, same old. How's everything with the family?"

"Fine." Sango wiped down the counters as she spoke. "Are we done with niceties?"

"All business," Rin chuckled. "I was calling to ask when your father was demanding he have his money back by." Sango hesitated.

"I thought you said you hadn't spent it yet."

"Three weeks later I still havent given it back," Rin dryly said. "You should know by not that _that_ was a big whopping lie. I just need to know if I can have another week or so."

"I assumed it was bcause we hadn't been able to come up with a place to meet at a time that would be safe."

"No. I spent the money on rent."

"Rin," she sighed. "Alright. Will you be able to come up with five hundred dollars in a week?" asked Sango.

"I always find a way, cousin. In this case, I think that given a week, I should be able to crimp enough from my tips at the bar to top off the last bit I owe you. I got a couple extra shifts worked out."

"I hate you working there."

"Not a fan of it myself," Rin flippantly replied. "Not the worst I've ever done." Sango rolled her eyes.

"I can't think of many things worse than stripping." Rin was silent a moment, then,

"It's all in how you present yourself," she offered with an odd tone. "You don't have to let it be derogatory."

"I guess." Rin's responding laugh was light and airy.

"See, you would be terrible at it. You'd probably get up on stage, freeze up, then stand there like a statue and be booed right back off. Then be broke and fired." Sango wrinkled her nose at the notion, kowing full well Rin harshly said such things as a reminder to what Sango needed to actively avoid.

"I think I can work out another week," Sango evasively answered. "Father has not bothered me too much yet – he's been rather preoccupied halfway around the world – but I don't know that I'll be able to get more time for you than that."

"If you can hold him off for a week, I'll have it back," Rin hurriedly swore. "I'll call in a couple of days to make sure." Sango rolled her eyes.

"If you don't have it, you don't have it. If you need a week, I'll get you a week." Rin was so silent for so long that Sango pulled the phone awy to look at it, checked that it was, in fact, still connected, then put it back to her ear. "Rin?"

"I'm here." Shaky, watery.

"Are you crying?" At that, Sango slipped across the hall to the semi-privacy of the living room. "Rin, what's wrong?"

"I'm not crying."

"Yes you are!"

"I'm happy," she choked over the line. "Thank you, Sango. I knew I could depend on you. I'm sorry it's taking me so long to get you the money, but if I have just this week, I'll have it. I just need to get these extra shifts in."

"Of course! Work the shifts, get the rest of the money. Don't..." Sango lowered her voice, knew that Inuyasha if not th others could still hear her clearly. "You are getting the money by working shifts at the diner and bar, right? Nothing else?"

"Nothing else," Rin promised on a whisper.

"You swear? Sometimes I don't believe you." Silence. "Rin?"

"Thank you for loaning me the money and thank you for getting me the time. I promise you that I am getting you the money back without doing anything... unsavory. And I am so sorry I got you in trouble. I should never have asked for it to begin with." Sango leaned her shoulder on the wall, guilt rising.

"Don't be. Listen, just give me what you can. I'll work a little on the rest – I keep the records."

"Don't even think about it!" Rin snapped, suddenly angry. "If you are caught lying on your finances you could get in some horrible trouble. I will kill you if you get kicked out over me."

"The order shouldn't have anything to do with our family finances anyway."

"Agreed, but they do. Do not do anything."

"Then swear to me you are making this money working legitimate shifts at legitimate jobs. Swear it to me Rin because _I_ will kill _you_ if you lie to me about it this time."

"I've never lied to you about it."

"I don't believe you. Swear it."

"I swear." Sango closed her eyes and set her forehead on her fist.

"I'll get you two weeks."

"Don't push it."

"I won't. Two weeks, okay? Make sure your rent is paid, make sure you've got food on the table. I'll... listen, I've got a little money stashed away – money the order doesn't track. Come up with three hundred and I've got the rest covered."

"I..." Rin's voice trailed off. In the background, Sango could hear Shippo yelling something in a giggling voice and inwardly sighed. Thank the gods, then. If Shippo was there, Rin was being honest. It was when she was alone that Sango had to wonder. "Thank you, cousin."

Sango was silent a while. She drew her fist from her forehead and studied her fingernails, unhappy and sad.

"This sucks," she muttered.

"You're telling me," sighed Rin. "I'm serious, Sango. If you do anything to threaten your stability within the order I will kill you with my bare hands. You are not going to come live like this."

"No one ever really escapes the order, do they?" Sango rhetorically murmured, but Rin answered her anyway.

"No," agreed Rin. She said something to Shippo, her voice gentle and light. So very near to the old, cheerful Rin that Sango had grown up with. Sango brushed tears from her lashes.

"You guys doing okay Lady Sunshine" she murmured. Rin breathlessly laughed at her former epithet.

"Some days are better than others. Today has been a good one. I had a few hours, so Shippo and I went down to Higurashi Shrine for a while so he could introduce me to the people he hangs with all day." Sango laughed.

"It's good for you to get some actual fresh air."

"Nah. Stupid houshi grabbed my ass." Sango rolled her eyes.

"Any more dreams?" she asked at length.

"I'm always dreaming." She could almost see Rin shake her head. "Remember when we were little? I used to see the yokai and he would come and give me presents and sometimes sit with me at night? Our parents all said it was a phase, that I had imaginary friends, and when I showed them the things he gave me, they thought I was stealing things."

"Many times you _were_ stealing things." Rin made a low noise, so Sango waved for her to go on and nodded, though her cousin couldn't see it. "Yeah, yeah, I rememer."

"I know I didn't imagine him. To this day I know he was real. I could see him, I could smell him, touch him. He was real." Sango frowned but said nothing. "Inuyasha looks a lot like him."

"Does he?" Sango numbly asked.

"Mostly because of the silver white hair and the gold eyes. But the yokai I saw as a child had these purple stripes on his face. And he always wore this ridiculous looking boa thing over his shoulder and he never, ever smiled and he certainly didn't talk as much as Inuyasha does. But I felt safe around him. I miss that."

Sango silently considered her cousin for a long time. She remembered Rin's imaginarey friend, but depiste Rin's insistance on his existance, she had never described him in even that much detail. She had tried – many times. Eventually, though, she had stopped talking about him at all. Or trying to convince her parents with the gifts he gave her.

Eventually, he had stopped coming to see her altogether.

"Rin, are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Why did you stop seeing him, then?"

"He said I was finally in a safe place and he didn't have to worry about me anymore."

Sango briefly bit her cheek. "How wrong he was, cousin."

"Oh, please, no one could have known what I was going to do. I didn't know what I was going to do until I did it. Speaking of which – Shippo, get away from the window and lock it back up right now."

"Shippo's life was definately worth it," Sango offered, hoping she said something to bring the smile back to Rin's voice. It worked.

"Shippo's life was _definately_ worth it – Shippo! Are you even listening to me?"

"In Inuyasha's words," Sango eventually offered, "we are really fucked up." Rin snorted ineligant laughter at that.

"No kidding." Sango stilled.

"Did you hear that?" Rin's voice turned vengeful.

"If the order shows up, I'm taking someone to hell with me." Then there was a very definiate, low, thudding noise that clicked on the line. Sango swiflty hung up and for long moments studied the phone. Too many conversations with Rin were cut short when the order decided to step in and figure out who she was speaking to.

They always knew if it was someone outside of the order on the line. It just, by the grace of Buddha, took them a few minutes to connect their lines.

Then she frowned and recalled what Rin had told her. Scoffing, anger flushing in her cheeks, Sango turned on her heal and marched back to the dining room and bestowed upon Miroku her most vicious scowl.

"Houshi, did you grope my cousin, too?" Miroku blined dumbly at her. "She said she went to Higurshi Shring today and a monk grabbed her ass!" Miroku slowly smiled, caught between shamefaced and nervous.

"I might have. I don't remember." Sangro grit her teeth and fiercely stared at him as she rose slolwy from his chair and began to work his way around the table, towards teh door. After a moment, she said,

"You should probably leave before I kill you."

Miroku left, laughing aloud. Sango roughly yanked open a cabinet and snatched out a glass, before snatchig out a soda from the fridge. She didn't realize she was scowling until Kagome said,

"How very unlike you to display your anger." Sango glanced at her and hastily smoothed her expression. Kagome smiled and leaned her chin in her palm, arms crossed over the table. "Too late." She hesitated a moment, then said, "Your cousin's name is Rin?"

"Yeah."

"Does she, by chance, have a little ward named Shippo?" Sango looked up, surprised.

"Yeah."

"He hangs out at the shrine most days. I never met her until this afternoon. And, yes, Miroku made a move on her – he makes move on anythig with breasts." Sango faintly frowned. "Shippo never mentioned she was a stripper. I guess that explains the odd hours... sort of."

"She also works as a witress in a diner downtown," Sango hesitantly explained.

"Why doesn't she..." Kagome fell quiet when even Inuyasha felt that important enough to glare at her over his shoulder – and not, she suspected, because of the beads. Sango eyed her warily, gaze narrowed. Kagome quietly epelled a slow breath. "Does it have to do with the order?"

"Shut up you idiot," growled Inuyasha. Sango shook her head and looked away, distracted herself with popping open the soda can and filling the cup.

"She was kicked out a couple of years ago," Sango replied at length. "Life's not been easy for her since then and she's pretty steadfast about not getting help. I can't much help her anyway without putting myself right smack next to her in hell."

Sadly, Kagome leaned back in her chair. After a long time of utter silence, she met Inuyasha's gaze as he continued to glare back at her. Well, well. He was mad at her for upsetting Sango and yet he seemed to enjoy upsetting her. Stupid hanyou. Still...

"The order doesn't know of me or Miroku," she lowly mused. "And we have nothing to do with them, so –"

"Don't," snapped Inuyasha. "We told you already. The order will do everything in their power to make her reget turning on them. That includes go after you."

"But poor Shippo is –" Inuyasha snarled at her.

"Back off and stay there." Kagome looked from him to Sango. Much more gently, and very sadly, Sango agreed.

"Back off and stay there."

***

The yokai watched from a distance, hidden by the dark of the night, as she hung up her phone. With a faint shake of her head, she went to the window where the little yokai boy leaned against the glass and she reached over him to relock it. As the boy called Shippo ducked her and bounded back into the depths, he read her lips.

"Settle down, Shippo," she lightly scolded, with no sense at all of strict parenting.

She leaned down to snatch up clothing from the floor, threw it into a pile across the room. She tossed the phone to where he knew the old mattress of a bed had been dropped. Illuminated by the glaring light of the apartment, she stripped off her shirt over her head to reveal toned arms and a taught belly, high breasts supported in a black lace bra with little pink embroidered roses that he could see even from here.

The yokai inhaled deeply against a surge of unwanted lust and watched her cover herself again with an oversized t-shirt. She stripped out of her jeans, kicked them aside, and long, tone legs were mostly left revealed by the night shirt that only brushed the tops of her knees. One day he would be close enough to remind her to clothes the blinds.

Especially in this neighborhood.

On that thought, he sniffed the air, and looked serenly upon the gaping young men at the edge of the parking lot as they, too, looked up into her apartment. The grinned and laughed and pointed.

"... the whore upstairs. Nice, huh?"

"I'd pay to tap that."

He advanced through the shadows, silent, until he stood behind them. In swift movements, the yokai set his hands to the skull of the first and snapped the bastard's neck, shoved the reject aside. The other barely opened his mouth the shriek when his blade severed head from body.

He glanced up to her window, but she had moved away so he could no longer see her.

The yokai watching moved away, then, unhurried. His attention was split at the scent of the asassin that had caught up with her; ah, the pathic human beast was slow. The yokai darted through the shadows, a blur of white, and steel flashed silver in the pale light of the moon.

He came upon the assassin as the black shrouded figure slipped through brush and darkness, worked his way through the run down neighborhood to reach the apartments. The assassin slowed and turned as the yokai caught up behind the wretch, but only a gurgling sound emerged from his throat suddenly torn to shreds. Crimson splattered the brush and the sides of the pale house, rushed from the gash that severed his jugular. The assassin collapsed into soil and grinned a sick grin from his severed throat.

The yokai slid his sword back into its sheath as he coldly looked upon the would be killer of that which was _his_. He turned away to return in clandestine to her, gold eyes flashing in the moonlight, and left the batard's body in someone's back lawn.


	8. The First Kiss

Kagome raised the bow and knocked the arrow into place. She shifted to the proper stance and aimed, shakily, upon the target set out before her, pinned to a massive bale of useless hay. Here, in the back of the shrine, was the perfect sanctuary to practice her newly appointed art.

Except one thing.

"Just do it," complained Inuyasha. She frowned, drew back and released. The arrow flew up into the branches of a tree, then lamely dropped back down to the ground despite her glare that willed it to go towards the target.

"Inuayasha," she growled, "you are such a distraction! Will you be quiet?" As she turned to look at him, the half-yokai was absently staring somewhere off in the distance with his pinkie digging in his ear, crossed legged and on the ground. Kagome rolled her eyes as she went to retrieve the fallen arrow, looking through narrowed eyes back to the target.

There was a scattering of some five arrows flopped on the ground around it. Only one had managed to hit the hay barrel itself and not only did the stupid thing's point only barely pierce the hay, but it as so low to the ground it looked like it was more propped up against the bale than anything else.

She examined the antique she retrieved as though she could blame it for her lack of skill, but she eventually sighed, resigned. Taking up her post once more, she tried again. She drew back, inhaled deep and caught her breath. Stilled, if only for a second, she released the arrow.

It missed the target, but it struck with a low rustle into the bale of hay – and stuck out straight. Eyes brightening, she smiled, prideful.

"I actually hit it!" She whirled around. "Inuyaha—"

"You missed," he drly said. She glowered.

"Inuyasha!"

"Well you did." Kagome growled to herself as she turned away from him again and took up another arrow, determined to make him eat his words. This time she hummed to herself, because if she focussed on that she didn't hear Inuyasha so louldly. Or so she had hoped.

"This is gonna get you killed," he loudly announced at her back. Kagome frowned again and vaguely worried that, at this rate, she was going to have wrinkles. "Hurry up, idiot."

"Inuyasha," she lowly snapped, "Osuwari."

The ground shuddered satisfactorily and Kagome let the arrow fly. It hit the outter ring of the target, buried deep into the hay behind the paper. Kagome grinned brighter than before and silently danced in place. _There_! She heard Inuyasha, sputtering and cursing, clamber his way back to his feet.

"I love that necklace," she called back to him, eyeing her work with imense pleasure.

"Will you stop doing that!" he hollered, making her flinch because he had mvoed up right behind her. She set a hand over her ear and glared over her shoulder at him. When she opened her mouth to send him plummeting again, however, he slapped a hand over her mouth and braced the other at the back of her head to keep her in place.

"Owawawa," she tried. Inuyaha's eyes went wide, worried, and when nothing happened he smirked.

"Nice try."

Kagome sighed, glared. Inuyasha smugly smirked back at her. And for a long, long time, nothing and no one moved. With her hands at her sides, holding the bow loosely in her fingers, Kagome decided to simpy wait until Inuyasha got tired of standing still – and really, how long could that possibly be? – with the cursed word on the tip of her tongue.

She knew the moment the same idea came to his head and his pale brows slanted back into his perpetual scowl.

Impasse.

"Kagome!" She looked over Inuyasha's shoulder; he twisted to look as well, never releasing his hold. Her little brother stopped at the edge of the lawn to blandly stare at the pare of them. In the last couple of weeks, the boy had grown rather used to the odd scenes the pair brought on. Sometimes he thought it was funny. Sometimes, like now, he looked at them like they were feuding toddlers. Dryly, Souta said, "Lunch is ready."

"Lunch," Inuyasha approvingly said. He straightened and stepped away, drawing Kagome along with him.

"How are you going to eat if you don't let go of her?" Souta curiously asked, falling into step beside them. Affronted by her little brother's indifference, Kagome scoweled at him with a high pitched sound. "Oh. Sorry, Kagome." Obvoiously not really meaning it, Souta finished, "Inuyasa, let her go."

"Absolutely not," Inuyasha sternly replied. Souta shrugged.

"Sorry, sister, but I did try."

So Kagome dug in her feet, brought Inuyasha to an indulgent hault, and dropped the bow. Struggling, she grasped his arms, his wrists, his hands – anything she could reach – and fought drag his hands away. Bemused, he let her, and did so until her temper snapped. With no other ideas left, Kagome brought up her foot and slammed it down onto his bare toes.

Inuyasha yelped, making a sound rather like a puppy, and jumped away, grabbing at his pained foot.

"Osuwari!" she vengefully yelled. Inuyasha went down again, face first and with a bellowed curse. Flat on the ground, he groaned, so Kagome turned on her heal and marched away. Behind her, she heard Souta's voice.

"Sorry, Inuyasha, but you kinda deserved it that time. Funny as it was." Kagome huffed indignantly.

"Traitor."

***

Miroku knocked on the door, but the music was too loud. He could feel it rumbling through the floor even from here. He knocked again, then a third time for good measure, before testing the lock. At which point he picked the lock – thanked whoever above was watching that the deadbolts were undone – and stepped into the house.

He shut the door behind him and meandered to the dining room, paused only long enough to scratch Kirara's ears when she greeted him. Frowning, he set his elbows on the counter and leaned forward to look down at the kitchen floor. Where Sango appeared to be orginizing tupperware.

Kirara leapt to sit beside him and so he absently scratched under her chin. He could feel her purring; could not hear it under the roar of drums and guitars and screaming singers.

So long as she was momentarily unaware he was there, he studied her with her perpetually serious expression. She had her beautiful hair bound back with a little white ribbon midway down her spine. She was wearing an actual color today – a deep, bloody red with a collar that was cut to sit off the shoulders and long sleeves that covered her long, strong arms all the way to her knuckles. And from this angle, he could see a little ways down said shirt, which was always a nice bonus.

Grinning, he leaned foward and flicked off the music.

She jumped. There was a knife glinting in her hand before he ever saw her draw one. Kirara scampered off the counter and landed in her lap, purring and cuddling, soothing her alarmed mistress.

"O-okay," Miroku drawled, holding up his hands, palm out. "I swear to never sneak up on you again." Her big, dark eyes blinked at him.

"Houshi," she eventually breathed and belatedly slapped a hand to her heart. "You scared me half to death. What are you doing here?"

"I was intending to see if you were interested to coming with me to collect some supplies at the Guild since you have actively avoided going with me for two weeks now, despite my daily and persistant requests, but I can only make the offer if you don't cut my heart out. Please put the knife away. I feel threatened." Sango glanced at the knife in question before she smoothly slipped it back into the discreet sheathe tucked in her belt.

"Right," she murmured. "If I throw it at you, you can just suck it in your hand." Miroku grinned, the imagery of that comment fascinating. Sango frowned at him.

"You really are a pervert," she told him without heat.

"So I've been told." He looked once more to the scattering of tupperware. "What the hell are you doing, my dear Sango?" A little stiffly, she set her feet beneth her and rose. Her black skirt slid just below her knees and it was there his fantasies came true. She was wearing knee high, sharply healed hooker boots with buckles up and down the sides.

"I just died," he said.

"What?"

"Turn so I can see how your butt looks in those heals."

"Houshi!" she reprimanded, which he had expected. She also laughed, however, which he had not. "Knock it off, I am in the middle of some work, here." She glanced at him – he was not paying attention to anything but her legs and, of course, her butt. She crossed her arms and tilted her head to the side for a moment, turned to fully face him, but his enraptured expression remained. "I'm chopping up a dead yokai and storing its pieces in this tupperware."

That got his attention.

"You are doing _what_?"

"Just kidding." Miroku stared at her and after some long moments, blue eyes went very bright. He smiled, suddenly delighted enough to make her leery.

"You made a joke!" He cheered.

"I was just trying to get your attention."

"You made a joke," he said again. "You even said, 'just kidding'." He lunged over the counter to snag her crossed arms and stole one hand from it, kissed her knuckles almost feverently. "Lady Sango, I am so proud of you that I can hardly stand it."

"I didn't make a joke on purpose."

Miroku rolled his eyes and braced his palms to the counter, pushed himself up to climb over it, then sat down again with his feet dangling over an array of tupperware.

"Here's the thing. If you make a joke – intentional or not – just have fun with it."

"But I –" He clapped his hand over her mouth.

"_Fuuuuuunnnnnn_. Jut have fun with it." He clasped her hands again and this time she flushed the color of her shirt. "I have to make a point, if you do not mind it." With a tick of her jaw, she looked sharply at him. "Ah, you're giving me some attitude here. Very nice. I'm still going to ask. How is it that I can live life better than you?"

"What?" Offended, she yanked to take her hands back and he held on, refused to let go.

"You have all this life and potential and you waste it rearranging tupperware, whereas I am dying and have a great time with everything that comes my way."

"You are not dying," she scoffed.

"Okay, not actively at the moment, no. But history shows that the men in my family cursed with the seemingly generational windtunel in their hand are dead somewhere around the ripe old age of twenty." Sango stared at him.

"You're serious."

"Quite. My father's dead becauseof it. My grandfather, too. And my great grandfather. Me? I'm breaking the cycle by not having children and despite the many women I've been with, I've held very true to that." He hitched a shoulder. "I'm not wasting my time on this planet, either. Why are you?" She ignored his question.

"It's going to kill you? You'll be dead in a couple of years? You've never mentioned that before!"

"We've only really known one another a couple of months and it never came up until now. As for the two years?" He shrugged. "Give or take.". She stared at him, wide eyes sad and stunned, uncomprehending. Miroku leaned his face a little nearer to hers, realizing he'd made a mistake. "It's alright."

"But... you're only seventeen... eighteen?"

"Eighteen."

"Aren't you afraid?"

"You waltz off into lethal battles every other night. Aren't _you_ afraid?" She hesitated, eventually shook her head, then frowned and faintly nodded.

"We are not supposed to be," she finally offered, "but I am sometimes afraid of leaving Kohaku alone."

"Do you waste your time dwelling on it when you are not in the midsts of of a fight?"

"No."

"Then why would I do it?"

"Because yours is inevitable – completely out of your control. Like leukemia, it doesn't go away because you stand in a safer place."

"All the more reason not to waste what time I have on it. But I digress." He lightly shook the hands he still held. "Why are you always so serious?" She blinked, shook her head to remind herelf what they had been talking about before.

"I have to focus."

"Focus. Okay. What are you doing with the tupperware?" She frowned.

"The cabinets were getting very unruly, so I am arranging them for a more convenient access." Miroku bit back harsh laughter.

"Do you ever... I don't know... stop and listen to yourself? You sound ridiculous." Temper sparking, she huffed and tried to pull out her hands from his again and once more his fingers tightened, held them in place, and lightly fiddled with the glittery black ring on her middle finger. "I'm serious, Sango." And since he was, very much so, she finally went still. "'The cabinets were getting _unruly_, so I am arranging them for a more_ convenient access_'. You sound like a drone."

"I'm not a drone," she weakly retorted.

"What if you weren't cleaning the cabinets? What would you be doing?"

"Kohaku has left the CDs out of order."

"Meaning they are not alphanbetized?" She uncomfortably shifted.

"Something like that. They..." His brows rose, waiting, and this time when she flushed it was with embarassment. "They are supposed to be seperated by genre, then artist, then album – by year."

"You're joking, right?"

"No," she muttered. "It's not that uncommon for people to organize their things." Miroku frowned, began to see the gravity of the situation in hand. And maybe see a little of what Shiochi had tried to say.

"Yeah, well, I keep the monk's financial files in order, but if one of the candles is in the wrong place I don't have a stroke over it. Now what if the CDs were already organized. Then what would you be doing?"

"The books are –"

"Ah, yes, the books – heavens forbid we forget the books!" She scowled at him. "And do you do that because you are actually so afraid to sit still for a moment or do you do it because your father wants it that way?" She frowned but didn't answer; didn't meet his eyes. "Or maybe it's both," he gently said.

"If you sit still too long you think too much," she tensely replied at length, the tendons of her neck jerking as she tried for a third time to pull her hands back, but it was with less force and conviction than before.

"Is that why you always have music on, too? So you can't her yourself trying to think?"

"Houshi –"

"And thinking makes you realize you're miserable," he pressed.

"I'm not..." she swallowed, couldn't even finish the statement. "It is what it is, Houshi. I am of the Order of Exterminators and this is how we live."

"What happens when Kohaku is on his own? What will you do?"

"I will be sent to do as my father does and tend to matters where they are needed."

"And if you have children, they will stay home and raise one another."

"Oh, I am not having children."

Miroku remained silent and waited for her to come to her own conclusions to that. When at last she did, it was with angry resignation. She looked at him, steady and stubborn.

"The Guild and the order are different entities with very different lifestyles."

"Obviously."

"If something works well for you, do not change it."

"Is it really working so well for you? You look so sad – more often than you think. You don't always hide it as well as you believe you do. Or you look like you do now and you are angry." He released one hand, brused his knuckles along her jaw. "And then sometimes you laugh at the wierdest of things and it takes me off guard. She can laugh! She can make jokes!"

"Houshi –"

"She has passion," he quietly interrupted. "It's all wrapped up in duty and training, hidden deep down inside, beaten into submission, but it's there." She didn't say anything, couldn't think of anything to say. "Am I wrong?" She opened her mouth and it was several long moments before anything came out.

"No."

"And I'll stake my life that no one's said anything about it before." She was very still for a long time, but he refused to look away to give her the easy way out. Slowly she shook her head. "Do you even see how beaten down you are?"

"I have more freedom than most do at my age," she quietly replied.

"What? Public school?" She looked at him and he rolled his eyes. "For everything you do – have done – your great reward is public school? Eight hours of class work and nothing outside of that?"

"Our school project is mostly outside of that."

Miroku considered his words carefully. "I met you almost a year ago." She frowned, wasn't sure when it had been. "We had a class together all last year," he clarified.

"We did?"

"I sat right behind you the whole time for nine whole months."

"You did?"

"I was the one who kept asking your for the time and you never even looked at me. You just stared ahead and pointed to the clock on the wall." Sango blinked and then her eyes went wide.

"That was _you_?"

"This year, you only realized I was there because you knew Kagome. You actually _talked_ to her. And when we were put in our little group together – and by the way, we've gotten so far off track this project that I'm sure we're about to flunk – I saw how you looked annoyed to be saddled with me." He inwardly was thrilled when she made no comment at all in regards to failing the project.

"I wasn't annoyed." He arched on brow. "Alright, I was annoyed. What was I supposed to think when all you'd ever said to me were comments of my physical body?" He ignored the latter.

"But now you've been forced to talk to me, to hang out with me. You've been forced to have friends, Sango. Don't you see what you're missing out on?"

"I had friends before I met you."

"You had _a_ friend," he clarified, since she wouldn't. "And if you can't tell anyone about that friend because he's half-yokai, don't you think there's a problem?"

"Rin is my friend." Miroku simply regarded dryly.

"You are not allowed to talk to your cousin because she believed in something that the orginzation that she belonged to didn't. Hm. Sounds a bit like a cult to me." Sango frowned at him but neither did she deny it. He settled his hand at the side of her face, brushed his thumb along her jaw. Slowly, gently, he drew her forward a step, so she stood between his knees and her belly brushed the counter.

"Look at you. You've got such a sense of yourself. You're always dressed like you'd never in your life dream of having someone see you as a mess. And you've got such style – this whole... wierd... goth, rocker, chic businesswoman thing goig on. And you listen to metal blared until no one can hear themselves think. I'm sure Inuyasha's lost half his hearing by now."

Sango looked at him again, her expression more bold than it had been in some minutes now. He lightly touched her hair, released her to bring up his other hand, to touh the sprakling star pendant against her collar, then lifting it to framing her face, fingers sliding through bound hair.

"You know who you are," he muurmured. "More than I know who I am. You know what you want, even if you try to hide it, to ignore it. There is something very sexy about that."

He leaned down, brushed his lips to hers. It was a moment of surprise that made her go still, but she opened to him in the next and melted like magic. He traced her lips with his tongue until she allowed him inside. Tentatively, her hands slid along his flat belly, settled at his waist, his hips. He tilted her head back, tangled her tongue with his, stroked and explored. Her fingers tightened, hooked through the belt loops of his jeans, working for some sense of control, even now.

He pressed harder, closer, closed his eyes to better feel the warmth of her, to know her taste and revel in it. He rained kissed over her face, brushed his lips across her eyelids. He trailed his lips along the gentle curve of her jaw, touched the thruming pulse of her throat. She tilted her head back as he trailed wet kisses along her throat, touched his lips to her collar, before returning to her mouth for more.

Her thumbs curled over the wasit of his jeans and warm fingers touched flesh. Goosebumps rose under a wash of heat and it was she who drew him deeper. She pulled with amazing strength, as if to slide him nearer, to bring him against her when the distance between them was too great. His hands tightened, fingers wrapped around her skull and tangling in her hair, fisted.

"What the hell is going on here?"

Sango stilled, but Miroku was unphased, didn't draw away. "Go away, Inuyasha."

Sango, however, stepped back, blushing furiously and refused to look up from the floor. She released her hold on his hips and so Miroku let her step back, let his hands slide reluctantly from her face.

When he looked at the pair standing there, wide eyed, he glowered.

"Nice timing," he growled, folding his arms over the bulge of his crotch. Inuyasha continued to frown, uncertain and uncomfortable. Kagome recovered first, turned abruptly and slapped her hands to Inuyasha's chest.

"We were just leaving!" she announced. Inuyasha didn't budge; instead, he looked at her like she was the most baffling thing he'd ever seen.

"But you said –"

"We. Were. Just. _Leaving_." Inuyasha gestured to the pair in the kitchen, glaring at Kagome as he did. Miroku looked away before it ever happened.

"But you _just said_ –"

"Osuwari."

The poor half yokai dropped like a stone, slamming face first into the fortuantely carpeted floor of the hallway. Miroku cringed at the thudding sound and it was a moment before he willingly, tentatively, looked back. Eventually, so did Sango.

Arms crossed, Kagome sighed.

"We were just leaving."

"Where are you going?" Sango asked with some hesitation.

"To the Guild's marketplace. Inuyasha wants to find the woman who sold me the necklace and demand she take it off. He says I'm taking advatange of it."

"Are you?" Miroku asked. Inuyasha staggered painfully, slowly, back to his feet.

"What was that for you bitch?" Kagome glanced at him with an ever suffering sigh.

"Never mind. You probably wouldn't understand even if I did spend the next ten thousand years trying to explain it to you."

"I'm not an idiot." Her responding look said it all, but she didn't dwell anymore on it.

"Alright, let's go," Kagome chirped upon return.

"We'll go with you," said Sango. Surprised, Miroku looked at her. Some color still stained her cheeks as she tentatively smiled. "Just have fun with it. Right?" Inuyasha snarled at Kagome.

"Have fun, yeah, whatever. Let's go." And though he was busy cursing her, he turned to let Kagome onto his back, securely adjusted her and held her tight, then marched from the house.

"There is no reason at all for him to be carrying her around right now," murmured Sango. Sango followed ahead and left Miroku to trail behind with an uneasy knot in his stomach.

_Just have fun with it._

The words felt like a regret aready.

***

Kagome and Sango strolled amongst the rows of shops, idly working their way through the mutton cakes that Sango had discovered upon their last visit.

"Too bad that removing the necklace was a no go," said Kagome. "I can't believe the vendor just... dissapeared." Sango slanted her friend an askance glance and dryly replied,

"I'll bet you're just devastated." Kagome hitched a shoulder and took a bite from her cake.

"These really are good. And they looked so disgusting when Mr. Shiochi was making them."

"I didn't watch."

"Wise decision. I almost got sick."

"You _looked_ like you were going to be sick. I'm surprised you're eating it."

Kagome glanced over her shoulder as they passed the place where they had decided to abandon their counterparts, though they had never gone far enough to loose sight of them. And there Inuyasha and Miroku still stood, still arguing, occassionally wholloping one another in the head. Neither she nor Sango had ever, despite standing there and trying, figured out what they were arguing about to begin with. She shook her head; Sango barely spared a glance.

"I don't think Miroku meant any harm by it," said Kagome.

"By what?" asked Sango, feigning ignorance. Kagome delicately raised one brow.

"By groping that other girl when we first got here."

"I didn't even notice."

"You hit him." Sango winced. "Although I don't really blame you, as there he was kissing you in your kitchen but a couple of hours ago. I mean –"

"Not my business, Kagome. He can do whatever he wants. There's no relationship anyway." Kagome opened her mouth to respond to that, then wisely closed it after a moment and instead filled her mouth with mutton cake. Some moments later, once she had chewed far longer than needed and finally swallowed, she said,

"I wish Inuyasha would kiss me like that." Sango choked and looked sharpy, brows rised, at Kagome. Kagome was off in lala land, however, eyes dreamy. "Miroku looked like he was going to swallow you whole. It was so romantic."

"Not hardly."

"And passionate."

"It was that."

Kagome sighed. "I want my first kiss to be like that."

"You;ve never been kissed before?" Asked Sango. Abruptly, Kagome retured to reality. Flushing, she switched topics with speed.

"This place is so interesting."

Sango looked up and glanced around as if she hadn't bothered really looking before. "It is," she agreed at length. "Very different from the order."

"I can't believe Miroku never offered to bring me before," Kagome sighed. "I can't believe he never even told me it was here! He told me about his wind tunnel and even his family, but never this." Sango faintly frowned.

"He's talked to you more than he's taked to me, then."

"Well it's not as if you don't know more about Inuyasha than I do."

"True," she conceded.

"How did you and Inuyasha meet, anyway? I've asked, but he always says he doesn't remember – if he bothers to answer at all." Sango faintly laughed.

"I hardly remember," she offered. "I went out one night tracking a yokai. Inuyasha was already there. I couldn't get close enough because of all the other yokai, so we struck a deal, though I can't remember anymore what he was after. He went in first, as sort of reconassaince, and cleared a path for me. I killed the yokai. The next day he was waiting for me at my house. _In_ my house," she ammended. "He was in the kitchen stealing ramen when I got home from school. It just sort of went from there."

"How long ago?" Sango considered, then shrugged.

"Two years ago? Almost three, I guess, since it was shortly before my father went back to active, full time duty."

"I though your father didn't know about him."

"Of course not. Before my father returned to full time and dissapeared, Inuyasha and I didn't meet at my house after that first day. We... actually I would go to his house." Kagome stopped walking and turned fully to face her, eyes wide and bright.

"He has a house?" she asked, awed.

"His father has a house. A rather large house, for that matter."

"His father!" breathed Kagome. "He's never mentioned his father!" Sango smiled as she shook her head.

"Oh, Kagome, you really are far gone, aren't you?"

"Far gone with what?" she asked, her face going red. "I'm not far gone with anything – Inuyasha or otherwise." Sango chuckled and patted her friend's arm.

"I don't think Inuyasha would like me talking out of turn – especially about him. Just listen to the things he says."

"I do listen to what he says."

"Listen closer, then. You don't need me to tell you about him. He says plenty enough on his own." Kagome studied Sango for long moments, considering. Slowly, she nodded.

"I'll try that," she said. "I would rather hear it from him anyway. No offense."

"None taken."

"I'm a little jealous." Sango blinked, then frowned.

"About me and Inuyasha?"

"Jealous isn't the right word. I can't believe that in the two years I've known you, you've known him, and we never met before now." Sango snorted ineligantly.

"Far gone, indeed." Kagome eyed her and Sango was grateful for the following distraction. She smiled at the muscian as he strolled to join them, sweeping up the hands of the ladies as he neared.

"Miroku is an angel – now he's brought us two!" Kagome blinked. Sango faintly smiled.

"Kagome, this is... Akihiko?" He smiled and nodded.

"She remembered!" he cheered delightedly. "My soul is complete, Miss Sango – adore you. And what, pretty lady, is your name?"

"I'm Kagome," she greeted with a warm smile, eyes bright. "It's nice to meet you Akihiko."

Akihiko stepped back with surprise, however, as he found himelf being forced back by a clearly unhappy half-yokai, gold eyes narrowed and glittering. Inuyasha crossed his arms over his chest and looked Akihiko over, bracing himself between Kagome and the pretty boy. Akihiko's eyes turned faintly nervous.

"You're a little scary my friend." Inuyasha's eyes narrowed further.

"Go away."

Akihiko slapped a hand over his heart and bowed with great laughter.

"Who am I to come between you and your lovely lady? I was only seeking to pet your yokai ego with praises of your stunning taste in women. It's alright, though. Miroku's not so defensive. I'll just... stick with this one."

So he took up Sango's hand, pointedly marched her straight past Miroku with a triumphant grin, and dragged her after him down the pathway. Kagome strained to see where, exactly, he was heading.

"They have a dance floor here!" She whirled and stuggled to unfold Inuyasha's stubbornly crossed arms.

"What are you doing?" he demanded. She slapped one hand before it could slap hers first, then took hold of the other.

"Come on," was all she said, marching her way in suite. Over her shoulder, she called, "Better go see about getting Sango back, Miroku. Akihiko seems like quite the charmer."

She didn't much bother to see if Miroku followed her advice, (she was fairly certain Sango was too rigid to unwind in the arms of stranger anyhow), and stopped only once she had Inuyasha firmly planted at the edge of the twirling, dancing Guild's people.

Inuyasha warily eyed her. "No."

Kagome brightly smiled. "Oh, I am determined."


	9. The Panic Attack

Rin crouched in the doorway, holding aside the curtains with her hands and staring out into the bar beyond. Loud and noisy, her coworkers worked their way through the room to serve drinks and offer their bodies for money. The men they serviced were aloud to look, not touch, but that didn't mean arrangements weren't made for outside the club. Men waved money, drunken and drooling; some of the younger ones appeared vastly uncomfortable, bashful, and were loudly, roughly, egged on by their friends. She saw one of the girls slyly, quickly, exchange money for packaged white powder with the bouncer. She watched the manager turn a blind eye and wave three boys with invalid IDs through the door.

Rin was well used to all this. She didn't care to study it anymore.

Anxiety making her hands shake, churning in her stomach, she was looking through the throng in search of whoever was following her.

One man kept touching himself with glances about to be sure no one saw him, but he was otherwise unthreatening enough. One of the other girls gave her information to a man who was twitching and ticking and missing his drug. Rin didn't think an addict would be on her tail. The bartender downed another shot and swayed on his feet.

Suddenly, everyone seemed to have evil, hideous undertones. Any one of them could be out to get her.

"Rin, are you okay?"

She jumped, startled, and turned to look over her shoulder. Up, up, up to the tall blond haired girl frowning down at her with concern. Rin cleared her throat and rose swiftly to her feet, dropped the curtain as she did.

"I'm fine, Atsuko." She shook her head and set her palm to her forehead. "I'm not feeling very well." Atsuko studied her in silence for long moments, watched as Rin set her back to the wall behind her and closed her eyes.

She needed to settle down, she warned herself. She'd be on stage in five minutes and at this rate, she was going to fall flat on her face.

_Easy, girl. You're getting yourself spooked for nothing._ She didn't even believe herself.

Atsuko's cool fingers touched her cheeks. "You seem a little warm," she carefully said. "Are you certain you're okay?"

"I'm fine," Rin repeated. She opened her eyes and dropped her head back, braced her skull to the wall.

"You want me to cover for you? I could use the extra money if you're not feeling well – I'm okay to work a double." Rin glanced to the woman askance. With anyone else, she might suspect they _wanted_ her to be sick so they could take her shift. With Atsuko – the once innocent little rich girl turned stripping runaway – didn't. Atsuko had gotten Rin this job, had helped her over stage fright and shame. Atsuko would cover as much for the money as she would so Rin didn't loose said job.

She exhaled slowly, soothed herself. She was tempted, sorely so, despite how desperately she needed the money. She really couldn't miss a shift. She glanced down at herself, arms and legs bared. Her blood red tube top dress fit like a second skin, offered glimpses of anything and everything that lurked beneath.

Eventually, though, Rin shook her head on a shaky sigh.

"I'm already dressed to go," she murmured. The moment she glanced towrds the curtain leading to the stage, however, her whole stomach dropped into her feet and the blood drained from her face. Atsuko instantly had a grip on her elbow.

"Rin," she breathed, worried and distraught, blue eyes wide. "What's the matter with you?" Rin jerkily nodded, braced her hand on the wall as she pushed off of it.

"Okay," she breathlessly choked. "You cover for me. I need to go home."

"Are you alright to drive? Should I call Yasuo? He'll pick you up." Rin shook her head. Atsuko was probably the only girl here lucky enough to have found herself a decent man and Rin wouldn't feel threatened alone with him. All she knew, however, was that she needed to be away from here – she needed to be alone.

_They've changed their minds. They're coming for me._

"No," she ground. "No, I'm fine. Thanks Atsuko. I'll call you later."

"Do you want me to call your cousin for you?" Atsuko offered, raising her voice to Rin's retreating back.

"_No_!"

Rin hurried blindly through the dressing room, a narrow room lined with mirrors that were speckled with picture of toddlers and notes. The counters were trashed by makeup, jewlery, undergarments designed to lure and generate lurid, dark fantasies. She dropped into her cubby as her breath grew lighter, shorter. Fingers still shaking she unzipped the black boots from thigh to ankle and kicked them off, tossed them into a box nearby. She shimmied from the dress, and her lungs instantly infalated, strong and deep, free of the compression.

She hurried to drag on jeans and snatched her bra from her locker, adjusted it arond her breasts and snapped it. She abandoned the t-shirt crumpled in the corner of the locker and instead shoved her arms into the pale sweatshirt left hanging. Eve as she zipped it to her throat, she shoved her wallet into her pocket and stomped her feet into faded sneakers.

_Out_, her mind chanted. _Out, out, out..._

"Rin –"

She ignored the girl who called her, wide eyes spitefully feigning worry, and stepped past her, around. But the girl moved after her, caught up, and grabbed her arm, dragged her to a stop a step outside the doorway. Mouth pinched, the girl gestured to the left.

"You have a fan," she snapped, then lowered her voice. "And give him back when you're done. He's tipping good-like." The girl tosed her black hair and strode away, smiled in a sulty fashion as she passed the man in the business siut. He inclined his head and adjusted his tie, strolled leisurely forward until he stood but a pace from Rin.

"Not quite the introduction I was looking for," he charismatically said, "but an introduction nonetheless." He smiled and his handsom face was charming in its own way; much older than Rin. In his eyes, however, lurked a lude darkness, coarse and vulgar. Rin raised her chin.

"I've seen your type before," she coolly replied despite bubbling anxiety.

"My type?"

"Old men who think a young girl stripping in a bar will willing go to his bed for a little extra cash."

"Won't she?"

"No." But only because she wasn't desperate enough in this precise moment. She turned on her heals and had moved but half a step before strong fingers closed around her arm.

"Everyone has a price." Rin whirled back, uncharacterisic alarm making her heart thud. But the brute that came between them forced her back, out of the man's reach. Stern, verging on abandoning all diplomacy, the bouncer said,

"There are rules 'round here, my friend. Go on back to your table and don't be coming back here again."

"I was invited," said the businessman, lofty and malicious.

"Don't care," replied the bouncer in much the same tone. He drew himself to his full height, then; impressive and rippling, toned. The businessman looked up at him and it was but a few moments before he roughly straightened his jacket.

"Rules are rules," he coldy agreed. He left with one final glance to her.

Rin watched him go, dimly became Aware of her fingers tightly folded around the knife in her jacket. She slowly removed her hand, unclenched her fingers, and inwardly began to shake harder still. Hell, she was more wound up than she thought, if she was halfwy willing to pull a knife over nothinG.

"Thank you, Shoji," she breathed. The giant of an older man turned to face her, his round face folded into a frown.

"You going home early?" She nodded. "Alrigh, you be careful, sweetheart." He gestured over her head, called to the new guy. "Walk Rin to her car, Ryota, and make sure she's not bothered, eh?" To Rin, Shoji kindly smiled and lightly tapped her chin. "Get some rest, darlin'. You looked clear wiped out. You'll be fine with Ryota. Fromer military man." He winked as he stepped past her.

Rin's responding smile was weak and strained. Shoji patted Ryota's arm as he retreaed out to the throng of people, presumably in search of the overzealous businessman. Ryota set his hand to Rin's back and steered her out ahead of him. Rin narrowly glanced at Ryota – military man or not, she didn't like him. There was something... off. And he watched her a lot, in a crude sort of way; when he smiled at her it was unnerving.

Hell and damn, she hated this wretched place!

Through the main room of the bar and out the front door – employees were not given a private entrance as in some places. The parking lot littered with layers of gravel was quiet, scattered cars reflecting lamplights off their hoods and windows. Rin led the way, drawing her keys from her jeans pocket.

"Thanks, Ryota," she offered because it was easier to be polite. The answer was not the one she had wanted.

Big, strong, formerly military man Ryota grabbed hold of her shoulders, spun her around, and roughly pushed her back into her car. His lips crushed down, moving wetly, his fingers digging into her jaw, trying to pry her mouth open. Rin kneed him – hard. Military man went down in a heap.

"Bitch!" He screamed into the silence of the parking lot. Rin whirled, unlocked the door and yanked it open. It slammed closed again, braced by a giant hand. She grit her teeth as she turned back to scowel at Ryota, hunched over an cupping himself, eyes dark and angry.

"Listen you little whore," he hissed. "You strip down to your birthday suite and I stand back every night like a gentleman; I don't do nothing but watch, even when you're looking me in the eye and pulling down your panties. I take out the pervs who try pushing themselves on you. You're a tease – I don't like being teased." Rin eyed him, tried to remind herself that she was no longer a part of the order, that she no longer resorted to violence to get her way.

It didn't work.

Drawing back her fist, she slammed it into Ryota's diapram and the air whooshed from his lungs with a satisfactory wheezing grunt. She shoved him with both hands, keys set in her fingers and drawing blood across his chest. She kicked him as he went down.

"Back. _Off_." She yanked open her car door and slid inside, turned the ignition so the ratty beast bellowed to life. Her breathing hitched, her lungs tightening, her heartbeat thudding faster and harder.

She tore from the parking lot, hating all men. Foul, arrogant bastards all of them. And tonight, she fumed, was just another day. Shoji, she vowed, would definately be hearing about his precious, pathetic little military sonofabitch.

She rolled down the window, prayed that the cold wiNd on her face would soothe rising panic. And panicking she was; she had suffered attacks before, like when she had been tossed on her ass by loyaless bastard councilmen.

She hit the stEering wheel because there was no one nerby to face her wrath. She slammed it with te flat of her palm and sucked in air. She hated this – every day. Diner, stripper, diner, stripper. Every day, with disgusting, sick bastard men grabbing at her, groping at her, leering and trying to buy her.

Who could no man just _shut the hell up_!

"Everyone has their price," she wept. _I've already named mine more times than I care to count. _

Tears began to trek down her her cheeks, stinging her eyes. She sucked in air, found it too difficult. Blindly, she hit the breaks and swerved to the side of the road. Foot crushing on the break, she held tight to the sterring wheel, until knuckles were white and her fingers ached. She set her forehed to her wrists, fought and struggled to breathe evenly.

Her whole body started to shake, to shiver, her bones rattling. She tried to breathe, in and out. Her heart was going to explode. She squeezed her eyes closed and eventually dropped her hands to her lap as her mind began to take over again.

She was being followed. She had been trained to deal with that.

She was being harrassed and threatened. That was to be expected.

She had turned herself into a whore at convenience.

Shaking so hard her teeth chattered, she leaned back her head against the seat and adjusted the rearview mirror. She swallowed against the quaking deep within as her eyes focussed upon the car parked behind her, headlights turned off.

She snapped her head to the side and the man standing there grinned back at her in the darkness. He raised the pistol and waggled his fingers farewell.

Rin raggedly shouted something anmalistic. She snatched her knife from her pocket and lunged out the window, sliced it hard and fast. His belly bled in a gash that tore muscle, missed the abdominal cavity as she had intended to split. He doubled over, stumbled back, then rose straight again and waved the pistol back at her.

Rin shrieked her rage, her fear, and slammed her foot into the gas. The car careened forward as the bullet expoded through the back window, raining glass down across the seat. She instinctively ducked, pressed a splayed hand to the back of her head, her neck, and flakes of glass bounced off her shoulders. The car sped over the limit, tires squealed as she rounded a bend that circled a neighborhood. She flashed a glance behind her, but the dark car stayed where it was.

She shouldn't go home. They knew where she lived. The order was no longer her place, but they still knew everything about one another. Rin swallowed hard against useless, hysterical tears and gripped the bloody knife.

She should not go home and she knew it, but...

"Shippo," she whispered as panic surged harder.

***

Rin unlocked, then slammed through the front door to her run down studio apartment in a bad part of town. She kicked it harshly closed behind her and stood rigidly in the middle of the room.

It was silent, still.

"Shippo?" she tightly called when nothing stirred. Her heart stopped. Images of the dead men in the parking lot crowded into her head. Pools of crimson blood, a hed kicked aside like a soccer ball, a neck twisted and bulging at an unnatural angle. The man a few blocks away with his throat cut. "_Shippo_!"

On a jolt, the old covers of the mattress on the floor stirred and the little fox demon's red head poked out, green eyes stared at her. She exhaled sharply, pressed her fingers to her eyes. "Shippo, come here."

Uncertain, the quiet little boy crawled out from his coccoon to come stand by her. She knelt down as he neared and looked him in the eye with false serenity.

"Shippo," she sternly said. "I need you to do something for me." He nodded, waiting. Hell, she had kept him here too long, under the impending threat of assassination and attack. He needed to be somewhere where there was true and genuine joy, real cheer. He needed to be where someone with a happier, lighter, purer soul could allow him a rel childhood.

She silently prayed she had not already ruined him.

"You feel safe at Higurashi Shrine." He nodded.

"Yeah. Ever since you first took me there," he replied. "After you saved me and your dad killed my mama and pa, you took me there to pray for them so that I wouldn't have to cry anymore." Choking on grief and nerves, Rin nodded, worked a moment to regain her voice.

"I want you to go back to that shrine," she seriously explained in a tone as slow and unfrightened as she could manage. "I want you to find either Kagome or Miroku. They seemed to really care for you."

"Kagome or Miroku," he replied, blinking innocently back at her. "Yes, they care for me. I eat finner with Kagome and her family a lot. Her mom's a good cook."

"You find one of them, Shippo, and you stay with them no matter what." Shippo frowned faintly and his lips pursed. "Do not come back here anymore."

"Rin, are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"You look scared."

"Shippo," she said a little sharply. "Go to Kagome or Miroku at the Higurashi Shrine. Run until you get there – do not stop. Do you hear me?" He nodded. "Do not tell them anything about me. Do not tell them that I sent you away. Do not – I repeat, _do not_ – tell Sango or Kohaku. They will get in a lot of trouble if they are seen with you." A tremor crept into her voice, so she rose to stand straight. "Go right now."

"But –"

"_Get out_!" She shouted, rigidly clenching her fists and closing her eyes so she didn't have to see the saddness and fear in his. Shippo's little feet scurried, scraped on the worn wood floor. A moment later, she heard the door open and slam closed.

Rin inhaled a shaky breath and turned, flicked off the overhead lights and thumbed the lock. She slid closed the bolts; knew she had taught Shippo well enough to never unlock the windows. Especially when he was here alone.

In the darkness of the corner kitchen, she slid open one silverware drawer and collected the sharp steak knives in one hand. She missed her yokai bone daggers and resented, furiously, that the order had taken those precious things away from her.

_W__here is my golden eyed guardian? I know I've seen him...._

Then she slid down into the pitch black corner between the wall and the mattress. Narrowly, she glared upon the windows, the door, and waited for something to lunge from the shadows.

"You sons'a bitches are not forcing me out again," she lowly, vehemently, said.


End file.
